Thank you very much. You are correct, there will be no pension or social security by the time I retire. Well, I won’t be able to claim ignorance if I end up broke![:)]
Well I just checked and for the record I am not living under a rock and I’m not over 65. I have money in the bank and money in my pocket. I have always lived within my means and never bought outside of my ability to pay. Current economic outlook- bright and cheery!
Gas prices are dropping, my pay is going up, my retirement fund has increased, so what is wrong with the economy? Not a thing my friends…[:D]
Ah…its the one’s planning to retire shortly that are being hit hard, with losses in 401K funds in double digits.
Around here, there have been lots of layoffs in just the last couple of months, and not a lot of hiring going on. Lots of bankruptcies.
Yes lots are doing fine (as am I) right now, but I am very concerned about those that are being hit very hard right now (including those impacted by corporate pension plans losses).
I am concerned about our local hobby shops too, as people spend more of what they have for essentials (oh, thats right–model trains are essential [:-^] ). And lots of the smaller operations don’t have a lot of margin. If the sales drop, they’ll be in trouble pretty fast, especially with credit tight right now.
At the risk of sounding too glib, I believe it IS helpful to go out and buy stuff right now. Those that feel ok can show confidence by purchasing. It helps the economy. Buy some stock, too, at low prices…
While I am not terribly affected by the overall global economy (knock on wood), my family economy sucks big time right now because of some serious unexpected expenses over the last several months. However, we have been pinching pennies–almost literally–and it is nice to know that layout progress has been moving along nicely for a few months even though my budget over that time has been limited to about $10 for a couple of contersinking drill bits that I have developed a nice feel for breaking. Jamie
Well if being publicly traded makes up “Wall Stree” then all the Class 1 railroads have to be included too becuase they are publicly traded companies. Likewise an “Investment bank” deals in a lot more investments than just stocks and mortgauges. But see next guote below… Truthfully those who are upset with the economy should probably be angry at all the people (as in citizens) who borrowed too much money, didn’t pay their bills, went bankrupt. Had they not done that, we probably would be talking about which DCC system some newbie should buy, or if 6" around the room is better than a 4x8.
There is the rub. We have totally different definitions of “Wall Street.” When the people in my circles say Wall Street we are exclusively speaking of the Exchanges such as The New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, S&P, etc. You are using in the much broader sense of all the businesses who have seats, are brokers, and finance the transactions that occur in the exchanges.
--------------- break change topics -------------
I said before the economy would not effect my trains… but thinking about it the 44% increase in the Walthers 20th Century Limited will probably keep me from buying one. Is that part of the economy?
Yep!
I had one of our Canadian snowbirds tell me a few years back that there was only one thing wrong with Socialized Medicine . . . . . . . . . . and you have to get sick to find out what that is!!!
Gentlemen:
Let me kindly remind you that this topic is straying away from the OP. Please keep it on topic - i.e. as the current economy affects your hobby dollars. Discussions and comments on and about socialized medicine are off-topic and political in nature.
Thank you for your consideration.
Tom
I said before the economy would not effect my trains… but thinking about it the 44% increase in the Walthers 20th Century Limited will probably keep me from buying one. Is that part of the economy?
I think not…It may have deeper roots seeing that is a railroad specific train and the majority of the modelers I know are focus on their favorite road names,freelance or may not want a passenger train that requires large curves to look right…
Having visited several clubs I have notice the old school ways of buying every road name under the sun seems to been replace by local roads like- say-a collection of B&O,C&O,NYC,N&W,NS,CSX,CR,WE,NKP etc locomotives instead of buying every road name under the sun.
I also suspect that as model prices continue to climb and come with road specific details we will see modelers narrowing their selection of locomotives if not focusing on one or two road name…
Removed my message after reading the moderator wishes a few posts up which arrived whiel I was writing. It was about socialized medicine.
Magnus
Lillen wrote-you will have to wait for a while to get there, sometimes upwards of a week. When I lived in Stockholm and I broke my foot I had to spend an entire day at the emergency ward just to get an x-ray. For the check up I had to wait another three weeks during which I could not work and to had be at home sick.
That’s pretty standard here too. Even with good insurance.
Well I’m not all warm and fuzzy about the economy. In fact I’m extremely concerned. I work in new home construction(self employed) and it is so slow here I have had to take on a lot of work on the side to help pay the bills,(1300 mortgage, 500 truck payment,600 car payment 350 health insurance , 750 credit cards, plus all the usuall bills )I still spend on trains but not much maybe 50.00/month. I’m glad I bought most of my train equipment two years ago.
Three years ago I was making six figures, this year I’ll be lucky if I break 40,000. That my freinds is a big hit. Making it worse is everything costs so much more nowadays. I’m sure glad my girlfreind has a good , stable job.
Yep, that’s me. My current situation is just fine, but retirement will be delayed a couple of years. Fortunately, the Democrats will be in control so Social Security should be safe and maybe we can get universal health care as well.
Enjoy
Paul
Well let’s see. I’m 36 the house is in year three of a thirty year, the cars are paid for there’s nothing on the CC’s that can’t be paid off at the end of the month and our health is fine.
That being said. My wife’s retirement has hit a snag at the moment with the stock market, but we went deal hunting last night and found a couple. My retirement is in a state employee fund that took a hit, but survived with only .5% loss under predicted gains. So that isn’t too bad at all, considereing and since the wife and I are a long ways from retiring theres no real worry.
As for the train budget, well that got put a bread and water level for now, because of the need to get the house resided. Can’t say that the economy is doing a number on the budget but restoring a 100 year old house is. Thank god upgrading the electrics and the plumbing was cheapish. At the very least we can plug in the baseboards and not worry about the tube and knob being an ignition source.
The economy hasn’t effected my hobby purchases yet. I have noticed though that a lot of items on Ebay haven’t gone for the prices they usually go for. I recently picked up a couple Proto S3’s that normally go for 50 bucks or more in CP colours for 25 bucks. There sure is a lot less competition out there now.
As for our spending in the hobby, We have always spent what we want on the trains and layouts, but then again, we’ve always been frgual with our finances. I mostly buy at shows, shop for bargains and we build much of what we want on the layout.
The patio layout I started on 2 months ago has cost less than $50 so far. That $12 sheet of foam board from Home Depot has seen more mileage than I could ever imagined; from tabletop to mountain forms. I for one, refuse to have these sour economic times rob me of living a life.
[soapbox]
Last week was certainly a disaster for me financially. Have probably lost more than $200K in the market since Labor Day. I actually work on Wall Street so I’m in the middle of the meltdown and it’s hard to focus on your day-to-day job when the market falls 5% a day. I work for a small investment firm and the meltdown hasn’t really trickled down to our level yet but I suspect the next couple of years may not be very good.
Relatively speaking, I suppose I shouldn’t complain since many of my peers will be losing their jobs and there is not much risk of that for me. Wall Street has certainly come in for a lot of vilification over the past few weeks yet most of the people who will lose their jobs had nothing to do with subprime mortgages or bad lending practices and didn’t make a fortune off of the most recent bubble. While people do get paid a lot at investment banks and private equity firms, the jobs themselves suck. Almost everyone I know in the industry hates their job and is just trying to make enough money to retire and do something else. Thanks to the last few weeks, the next couple of years will be particularly miserable since the pressure to perform will be higher than ever, our bosses angrier than ever, and the pay will be much lower.
Anyway, I went to the Timonium Show (had made plans several weeks in advance). I still bought things but not like I normally would. It’s sort of silly to try and save $200 on train purchases to make up for $200K in stock market losses but it’s the mindset that you get into.
Until the Canadian dollar goes back to near par, I am not buying any train stuff at all. We are at 80 cents on the dollar now with no end in sight.
Now is the time for you to be pounding on the desk of your congressman–metaphorically speaking, of course–demanding that at least a portion of Social Security be privatized. When G. W.–that’s Bush XLIII for the uninitiated–advocated a positive position in that regard he was jumped on with both feet, chastised as “Gambling your retirement away in the stock market!” Why the objection to “Gambling your retirement away in the stock market?”–because if you remove Social Security from the general fund you are, in effect, removing 38% of the Federal Government’s income; that means–HORROR OF HORRORS!!–that the Federal Budget would have to be cut by 38%! Nobody, of course, wants to cut government spending! I always refer to that mythical “Social Security Trust Fund” as our “National Debt” which is what it has become.
Your return on your Social Security investment–your contribution as “Slick Willie” Jefferson labeled it–is currently only about 1.75%. The SSA–that’s Social Security
And that, fellow forum members, concludes this regularly scheduled program. Time to move on…
Tom