Forum Post: cash out your 401k....it might shut wallstreet down quicker
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 16, 2011, 11:36 p.m. EST by newagethinker
(13)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I am one of the millions unemployed and was forced to cash out my 401k. this got me thinking...do any of you remember the days before the 401k push? it would seem to me that we collectively support corporations and their greed with our monies...how many of you, just like me lost thousands when the real estate bubble burst? Ever try to find out which stocks you own? I did...its my money but they wont and cant even tell me what stocks i owned....I believe the protesters are where they need to be...this is where the money is and this is all the rich care about so lets devise another way to shut them down.... and my thought is if every one closed their 401k or at least stopped contributing to it that would essentially limit monies going to the corporations who send our jobs overseas and esentially cheat americans out of every dime we have.....what do you guys think? am i on to something or is this a bad idea? i think it has teeth but would welcome your insights...
No need to cash out. Just move all your investments in 401k into Money Market fund. That way, you are not paying any penalty. If everyone moves to Money Market in their 401k accounts, Wall St will pay attention. Plain and Simple!
And your savings won't even keep up with inflation.
True. But, better than cashing out 401k. At the very least, convert it into Roth IRA and take your account to a small company that cares about you. This is the same as moving your bank account to a smaller bank / credit union.
Better yet, manage your IRA yourself. No one cares about your money as much as you do. No one. With the various investment vehicles available today, anyone who can read can create a diversified portfolio all by themselves and pay minimal expense fees in the process.
True. This is why I don't have a 401k. I would add that Roth IRA gives maximum control and power. Additionally, investment clubs run by groups of people.
I moved mine into Money Market funds. I may not even keep up with inflation but at least I won't lose 20% in the blink of any eye. At this point, I'm not convinced that I won't continue to outright lose money as I did on the Stock Market for the 10 years prior to the Great Recession (and not even including the Great Recession).
The beauty of our system is that anyone can diversify with things like gold, oil, livestock, minerals, etc...literally anything you want. If your losses were that great, that is something you did not do.
I'm sorry if you lost that much money but putting 100% of your savings into a money market is not going to serve you well in the long run. Heck, buy some muni bonds instead.
I don't have the choice of gold, oil, livestock or minerals with a 401k. At least not our 401k.
At this point, I'm too spooked to put my money into anything but money market. You know, the other day, I was considering buying some gold but I told my co-worker, knowing my luck, it would drop the day after I bought it. Sure enough! The VERY next day, it plummeted like crazy and has stayed well below what it was when I thought about doing that.
Gold is a little bubbly right now for me.
A lot of 401Ks offer a bond fund. That may be a decent option if your are completely adverse to stocks.
Remember though, buy low sell high. Don't sell low. If you just lost 20% there's a good chance that it is a good buying opportunity.
No, you don't understand. I can't short stocks with my 401k, they don't allow it. And I don't have significant investments outside of my 401k. I just want it to crash because I have this superstitious belief that it's going to crash one more time before our economy actually starts recovering so I'm waiting for it to crash before I move my 401k money back into stocks.
Every day when I hear the Stock Market reports, I chant, "Down DOW Down! Down DOW Down!"
Yea it is a good idea to always keep a short position in some aspect of the market so you can profit on down days as well as up days. I think if more people played Wall St. correctly they wouldn't oppose it as much.
It's why I'm praying every day for another stock market crash! :)
Do not cash out your 401k- you'll be slammed by taxes.
Jesus...just stop giving ANY OF THEM your money!! Why do you all insist on doing this?? Money markets, 401k, banks...just give it to your mommy to hold if your worried you might spend it on silly things. Oh wait, the wall street guys and big bankers NEED your money so THEY can buy silly shit - like more vacation houses!
a money market is still a stock a stock is still part of a corporation. what is the goal here? if you want to stop wall street you stop investing in any kind of stock you force corporations to realize you will not support them ever again.... not until they stop the corporate greed... this doesnt have to be longterm people! the way corporations borrow and spend borrow and spend the loss of the 99% percent of our money will cripple them.... in this situation you cant think long term... not if you want to win this fight.... trust me all your arguments about investing and where to put your money is not thinking logically this is under the assumption that the govt and the corporations are sharing the wealth... people are getting poorer and poorer... investing less and less what money? there is nothing left to invest? i guess you just not as broke as i am but you will be.... and you wont be talking about investing you will be talking about living week to week.... dont you understand? the people who are going to fuel this fight are the poor and desperate and as that number gets bigger and bigger that is what is coming... this i believe is just the beginning.... the options left to those of us who have been pushed to the edge is to revolt... ididnt cash out my 401k because i wanted to....i had to...and i will be in the majority not the minority...so those of you talking about where to put your money are obviously not where those of us willing to protest are right now in our lives...but the way things are going you wont have any money left to debate where to put it. .
Money Market is not a stock! Its tied to safest investments available (notes and bills of US govt and agencies) with the intention of not breaking the buck. When I am broke, I would cash out obviously... but if I can hang on and not take a hit from cashing out, I would. Ironically, its the collective 401k accounts (and the automatic funds invested) that gave the big boys power to invest poor people's money for their fun and profit.
like i said it isnt going to matter the way things are the debate on how to spend money people are not going to even have is a dead one.... if we keep sitting back and hoping that rich people are going to start spreading the wealth before we wake up to what is coming it will be too late. i dont think this financial crisis is going to go away at all... everyone keeps depending on us americans to fund their dying countries and we are dying ourselves when we crumble so will all who rely on us and chaos is what is ahead.... this protest is only one of the many that is coming...these are truly the end of days in my opinion.... its gonna get much worse before it gets better so really all the debate on what to do or not to do... unless your the 1% you will eventually fall just like i have and i am still falling...and as the base that everyone depends on keeps on crumbling all from above will pile onto the rest but make no mistake you will fall just like i did eventually.... or maybe you can move to china you will have a job but not live very well.....
I am not the 1% and I have fallen repeatedly and again still falling. I don't have 401k. I don't expect the crisis to subside or the rich to yield. If people take their business to smaller companies, it will make a difference. This means, buy stuff from smaller companies, bank with smaller banks and save your retirement IRA with smaller firms. This is not sitting back, but really cutting off the cash supply to the rich people. The focus of the protest should be taking business away from big banks, big brokerage firms and big insurance companies. Big guys such as Goldman already know about inevitable financial crash as you can see from this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_fKpD7SgpA
PS: I understand that as an independent trader, I make money from falling companies too by short selling stocks and that other people don't really have that kind of luxury to count on.
@ tiouaise....i thought of that but if we all invested in gold it would dilute even that market...not to mention how much can you really buy of it? there are billions of people in the world not like back in the day when there were less people... plus the rich bastards have already been buying up gold and precious metals they already are on that... i think we will probably all realize that even gold wont be worth anything when it all hits the fan... would you rather have gold or water?
at mooks.... let me tell you the govt has their hands all over that 401k... they penalize you on your own money and tell you its for your own good.... you have to reach retirement to get your hands on it.... how is medicare and soc sec doing these days? a 401k it just another way they play keep away with your money dont think it will be there when you retire and dont think with the stock market and people like madoff that it will be there at all. the last year before i cashed it out i had it in the lowest risk in bank loans and that is the only time it made money!
What do you guys think of pulling your savings out of the banks and investing in something that will always have some intrinsic value, like arable land or precious metals?
Why such a drastic measure when we don't see any danger of inflation sky rocketing in the next 2 years? We can handle inflation better than we did in the past: shop for better bargains, cut costs by planning in advance, share things with people etc.
If you are talking of investing in precious metals, thats a different strategy with its own merits. But owning anything of value means that you simply pass the burden of worrying about the safety of your property towards whether the big insurance company would cover it or not! The best asset you can own in uncertain times is cash :)
Apparently we are falsely led to believe that inlfation remains low. The real figures are MUCH higher than the official figures. Just look at the price of food SKYROCKETING.
"The best asset you can own in uncertain times is cash". P..p..pardon? You mean like in 1923 Germany when people had to literally bring a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a quart of milk? Last month a friend showed me a perfectly legal and official "100 Trillion Dollar" bill from Zimbabwe, recently taken out of circulation and used as toilet paper because it was only worth about... 14 cents.
I hate to say this, but the same could happen to our dollar if nothing is done about this economic mess we are in.
I don't think we are near a global collapse of all currencies. Dollar has that theoretical risk, so do all other currencies. In practice, however, people save money in major currencies (Dollar, Pound, Yen, Swissy, Euro) because it is liquid and more direct in the sense that you are not counting on insurance companies to protect your asset.
You do bring up an excellent point. What to do if and when we approach the crappy times of using paper money for firewood and toilet paper: Well, people as groups pursue bartering, farming and community living. Like someone said recently elsewhere, US Dollar is still the best looking kid at the prom of ugly kids of other nations. So, buy T-bills if you are so paranoid of inflation
"I don't think we are near a global collapse of all currencies." I'm sorry, but I have to wonder like "newagethinker" if you've been living in a cave for the last 3 years... Did they tell you about the financial collapse of 2008?
??? inflation not skyrocketing? or going up? what planet do you live on? i dont think we can make a change that is long term here. i think we need a short term immediate plan and that plan is to take down as many corporations as possible... then from the ashes i am hoping less corrupt corporations will take their place.... a 401k is not money its esentially stocks...the problem with those stocks is they support corrupt corporations...if your a corporation you are corrupt and dont think they post the fair market price for their stocks either.... have you ever bought and sold stock? its a joke really the stock price is based on what the company is willing to report about how well their company is doing....and since all they care about is making more and more money they manipulate all of that... but not before the rich guys buy low and sell high....its all a game and people and families need to get out of it until corporations and the laws that govern them are changed..
I stand by my take on inflation not sky rocketing in the next 2 years :) But price gauging, unfair competition, scams, corruption will go up. I have to agree with the rest of your paragraph 100%. Its funny you asked if I ever bought and sold stocks... I am a day trader!
You are absolutely right about 401k accounts: With the exception of a few people, everyone just has stocks / funds in them, often unmanaged (until of course they take a huge huge loss). I don't encourage people to close them and take even more loss. Its like asking people to quit their jobs to vent their frustration.
Yes, it's a game but a few people (day traders such as myself) make a living out of day trading! This is how we pay bills and make ends meet. Remember, day traders are independent traders who don't work any company. See the video below, if you have not already, about views of another independent trader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-MQhssCqI
listen... carefully... this protest is not about playing fair... this protest is not about forever and how to invest your money....if a clear and ugly mean and cutthroat message is not sent now the corporations who are screwing the hell out of all of us are NEVER going to change... lets not be stupid.. how long to you really think these people are going to be able to hang around on wallstreet? this is a waste of time. they need a smart and overwhelming attack on what is the core of the problem...so you have to ask yourself how do you take a corporation down? well why do you think they started pushing people into playing the stock market? do you think that is a coincedence? back in the day only the rich played the market the working class never invested the way they do now...and why is that? because a corporation is designed to eventually implode just like a pyramid scheme eventually they need more and more money to keep it going because they are supposed to make more and more money thats what they do that is how they are designed so that is why they started coming after the working families of the world and pushed us to invest in them.....they are the immediate problem and if we really want to win that is how you take them out daytrader.... not invest more.... one day you will find that you wont be able to find a company that isnt corrupt...and making money as a daytrader you will just be yet another casualty.... what ever happended to companies actually living within their means? why do they need so many investers to keep giving them cash...does anyone NOT have a 401k these days? did you ever just stop and think about the enormity of that realization? I am in my 40s when i was young there was no such thing as 401ks...only the rich traded stock so if corporations were not so fucked up why do they need us to keep funneling them money to survive...trust me they are not a working model of fairness and ingenuity... they guys on top are feeding off of it and they need us to keep feeding their greed which gets bigger and bigger... really eventually people wont have money to put into a 401k anyway... its all going to crumble because of greed....they will probably think of something else like china and slave labor.... until the slaves revolt.... i say we do it now before they put a chain around our necks.
Googled "shut down wall street close 401K." I've been wondering this for awhile to see if anyone else had the same idea. This is the first example I've found. I am full-time employed, in my mid-50s. I stopped contributing to my Fidelity 401K this week, which means my employer will do the same - oh, well. Going tomorrow to take all the money out of the IRA that I've had for 20+ years, in mutual funds at Merrill Lynch/BofA, and move it to a credit union IRA with a fixed 2.75% interest rate. No stocks, no bonds, no whistles, not much interest. For now, until the credit unions think they rule the world, that seems like a good idea. Employers stopped funding pensions because they'd rather keep the $ themselves. Getting everyone to invest in the market makes everyone a stakeholder. But if you get rid of the market, nobody has a stake. There will never be a completely level playing field, but I think we can smooth it out a little, and make them listen to us. It will take a lot of us to stop being greedy in order to show them how it's done.
yeah i wish i had never opened one up in the first place. i had no choice but to cash mine out but in the future i will never be convinced of doing this again. i think that they will come up with another idea to pitch to the american people. they may see a decline in people wanting to invest in a 401k.... to me its too dam restrictive.... its my money and if i need it for ANY reason I will be dammed if the govt is going to tell me i cant close it and use the money...screw the govt they are too big and too corrupt.... they will probably shine it up and call it something else but it will be the same thing. anyway sooner or later like i said the infrastructure will begin to crumble they cant keep taking and crushing us little guys we are what holds them up and then everyone will come crashing down. i hope this occupy wall street starts to get organized soon..... i have to go and look at what is going on with them now...