February 2009 Archives

It would seem to many students of American history that when America is faced with dire tragedy, the people choose the leaders needed to overcome. America came face to face with a pending economic calamity just prior to the elections, and the majority of the people clearly elected the best of the candidates to take on the challenge. Just as Lincoln was the right choice at the right time to keep the United States united for posterity, the election alone is insufficient to overcome the challenge, but supporting the right leader through their term of office could be.

Congressperson after Congressperson can be heard today on C-Span's coverage of Committee hearings confessing to knowing nothing about managing a 'too big to fail' financial institution, or NASA, or a local health care clinic. So, why are they in charge of spending trillions of our dollars on these and myriad of other activities? Is there not a better way of allocating tax payer dollars than to rely upon the managers of lobbying corporations, whose obvious intent is to dig their fingers ever deeper into the pockets of tax payers?

Back in 2006, I wrote at WatchBlog, of a coming market and economic downturn and warned 401K investors that 2006 was the time to start unloading stocks from their 401K's. If you followed that advice, transferring funds from stocks to bonds and fixed funds, your 401K is still intact, and you made money in the interim. I am pleased to now write it is time for 401K investors to start transferring fund balances back into stocks. I don't have a crystal ball. I base this recommendation on Fortune Magazine's chart, Warren Buffet's wisdom, and my own education and experience in economics. Details follow.