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October 2009 
...where did the money go ?...
Will
...sorry about the whitener ad...I couldn't seem to cut and paste without it...
...this supports what I tell people ....that our money is not real...and US money is not even ours !...we rent it from the Federal Reserve...and never have the posibility of paying it back...and endless cycle of debt where They just print more...
...
By ERIC CARVIN, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 11, 12:41 PM ET
NEW YORK - Trillions in stock market value - gone. Trillions in retirement savings - gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll - gone, gone, gone.
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Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a 401(k), a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago.
But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China?
Or is it just - gone?
If you're looking to track down your missing money - figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back - you might be disappointed to learn that is was never really money in the first place.
Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a "fallacy." He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money - it's simply the "best guess" of what the stock is worth.
"It's in people's minds," Shiller explains. "We're just recording a measure of what people think the stock market is worth. What the people who are willing to trade today - who are very, very few people - are actually trading at. So we're just extrapolating that and thinking, well, maybe that's what everyone thinks it's worth."
Shiller uses the example of an appraiser who values a house at $350,000, a week after saying it was worth $400,000.
"In a sense, $50,000 just disappeared when he said that," he said. "But it's all in the mind."
Though something, of course, is disappearing as markets and real estate values tumble. Even if a share of stock you own isn't a wad of bills in your wallet, even if the value of your home isn't something you can redeem at will, surely you can lose potential money - that is, the money that would be yours to spend if you sold your house or emptied out your mutual funds right now.
And if you're a few months away from retirement, or hoping to sell your house and buy a smaller one to help pay for your kid's college tuition, this "potential money" is something you're counting on to get by. For people who need cash and need it now, this is as real as money gets, whether or not it meets the technical definition of the word.
Still, you run into trouble when you think of that potential money as being the same thing as the cash in your purse or your checking account.
"That's a big mistake," says Dale Jorgenson, an economics professor at Harvard.
There's a key distinction here: While the money in your pocket is unlikely to just vanish into thin air, the money you could have had, if only you'd sold your house or drained your stock-heavy mutual funds a year ago, most certainly can.
"You can't enjoy the benefits of your 401(k) if it's disappeared," Jorgenson explains. "If you had it all in financial stocks and they've all gone down by 80 percent - sorry! That is a permanent loss because those folks aren't coming back. We're gonna have a huge shrinkage in the financial sector."
There was a time when nobody had to wonder what happened to the money they used to have. Until paper money was developed in China around the ninth century, money was something solid that had actual value - like a gold coin that was worth whatever that amount of gold was worth, according to Douglas Mudd, curator of the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum in Denver.
Back then, if the money you once had was suddenly gone, there was a simple reason - you spent it, someone stole it, you dropped it in a field somewhere, or maybe a tornado or some other disaster struck wherever you last put it down.
But these days, a lot of things that have monetary value can't be held in your hand.
If you choose, you can pour most of your money into stocks and track their value in real time on a computer screen, confident that you'll get good money for them when you decide to sell. And you won't be alone - staring at millions of computer screens are other investors who share your confidence that the value of their portfolios will hold up.
But that collective confidence, Jorgenson says, is gone. And when confidence is drained out of a financial system, a lot of investors will decide to sell at any price, and a big chunk of that money you thought your investments were worth simply goes away.
If you once thought your investment portfolio was as good as a suitcase full of twenties, you might suddenly suspect that it's not.
In the process, of course, you're losing wealth. But does that mean someone else must be gaining it? Does the world have some fixed amount of wealth that shifts between people, nations and institutions with the ebb and flow of the economy?
Jorgenson says no - the amount of wealth in the world "simply decreases in a situation like this." And he cautions against assuming that your investment losses mean a gain for someone else - like wealthy stock speculators who try to make money by betting that the market will drop.
"Those folks in general have been losing their shirts at a prodigious rate," he said. "They took a big risk and now they're suffering from the consequences."
"Of course, they had a great life, as long as it lasted."
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...of course the money seemed real enough when it was deducted from our paychecks ...how are we going to fix this...
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this is an excellent article, but as you say, it seemed real when deducted… how money goes from real to virtual. Did you lose a lot, Will?
…I didn't lose any money…I have never believed in the stock market…but I'm not working because money has dried up as far as construction is concerned…my brother-in-law was just getting ready to retire and has lost $350,000…
I've had all those thoughts about money. I believe this is a wise set of ideas.
I have always regarded the stock market as a sophisticated form of gambling, even though the long-term was always up. And my only gambling is a $1 Lotto ticket now and then…..
Thanks for sharing this, Will. Remember, the Big Picture is in charge and we will not be homeless or starving….[My mantra….]
Blessings, OM Bastet
I'm with OM.
Always thought the stock market was a gambling game, and that the 'money' was never PHYSICAL.
Hell, NO money is physical…this paper is as worthless as the toilet paper you use to wipe your butt.
But somewhere in Time, a bunch of maniacs sold us this lie, that we've been under ever since….an agreed upon Value of this paper.
Way back in time, there was a seizure of all GOLD, stored away at Fort Knox or elsewhere…There's your real money…Stolen then and replaced with printed paper.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, that we ought to go back to trading pretty seashells and sparkly rocks. :-D That's figurative of course…but person to person trading and service bartering can be brought back into practice, wiping out the middle men who created paper money, who suck up all of your energy, time, work.
But worry not about London Bridge Falling Down, Falling Down…
Hey, they just had to add new digits on the National Debt digital counter here in NY, as number spaces ran out….
Heh. :-P
PS…duh, just realized that Gold IS a pretty and sparkly rock :-D LOL
…I can *remember* an economy that was/is based on how connected you are with your spiritual purpose…
…all basic needs are met …people can be as Spirtually lazy as they want…but riches are added to your account as you create beautiful music or art ,or invent things that enrich others live…the more that you give to the whole, the more affluent you become…
…a little different type of system…
…and you get more pretty rocks…
Exaaaaaaaaactly Will =)
You hold that thought…because when things fall and crash, it will have to be replaced with something else ;-)
I'll hold that thought and vibration too =)
Great post and comments. Someone reading this will simply think “money isn't real” and tack it up to simple deceit. The fact of the matter is that the global monetary system is the most sophisticated system of global slave-holding ever invented by man and, as long as we think somebody like Obama or McCain is going to fix anything, we'll still be enslaved.
Whether you invest in the stock market or simply hold cash in the bank, you're still playing the same roulette game, except that I'd say your losses are guaranteed holding cash.
For those who'd like to understand how the monetary system works, precisely, check out:
The inevitable collapse of the U.S dollar
The video “Money as Debt” is a great start: the solution they propose is dangerous, as far as I'm concerned, because it's another government solution, which means a solution by a group that has a monopoly on legalized violence and coercion, but the explanation of our current system is very clear, accurate and easy to grasp.
So what DO you do with your investments? I teach an investment method that I developed that combines Taoist Yin-Yang theory with the teachings of Seng Ts'an, the Third Zen Patriarch, particularly the verse from the Hsin-Hsin Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind). It has allowed me to triple my investments over the last 7 years and to view the present meltdown with profound serenity. Here is one of the clues to the method:
“The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.”
The first clue to this system that I received was reading Harry Browne's Fail-Safe Investing which I HIGHLY recommend.
Read it and you'll see how it ties in with the above-quoted verse.
Yes, we are up for some profound change AND we are being manipulated. Some of the propaganda that the corporate media is promoting is that “the free market failed” and “capitalism is dead” and “we need more, not less, regulation.” This is being used to prep the populace for even further centralization of power.
But the fact of the matter is that this was not a failure of the free market because there was none. This was the fruit of political entrepreneurs, not free market entrepreneurs, creating a system whereby Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their shareholders would profit from circulating internationally all of the lousy loans made over the past year and, since the FM's had a de facto government guarantee, the taxpayer and all holders of US dollar-denominated assets would be left holding the bag once the rot was exposed. The taxpayers, i.e. citizen-slaves of the national protection racket, lose on all counts: their currency depreciates, their taxes increase and their economy collapses.
The holders of US dollar denominated assets, such as the Chinese who hold huge amounts of dollars, lose because those dollars are worth less and less since the debt that backs them is expanding to such a huge extent that the only way that they'll be paid back is with worthless dollars.
Let me illustrate that another way: six months ago I could have showed you, legitimately, how to invest ONE single dollar and become a BILLIONAIRE overnight, just by taking a plane flight to another country. What am I talking about? If you had invested one U.S. or Australian or Canadian dollar and invested them in Zimbabwe dollars, your one dollar would have bought you billions, yes BILLIONS, of Zimbabwe dollars. And just so you know, it took about 3 BILLION dollars to buy a banana.
And this is precisely what is at play in the world's economy: it's not that the Chinese doubt that the U.S. will pay them back: the question is how much those dollars will be worth a year from now, two years from now, thirty years from now, when those Treasury bills mature.
And the U.S. financial sector, which is truly the global financial sector with its roots in the very Bank of England that was the true power in Britain when the American Revolution was fought, has infected the entire global monetary system with their securitized fraud.
Why did Europe, Iceland, and the entire world go along with it, knowing full well that the entire maneuver was based on hype? What “solution” will they try to sell us now?
Keep your eyes and ears open, and teach your children the true history of our present enslavement.
ouch will, no work? that's hard. really sorry to hear about your brother-in-law, what a horrible shock.
…when Spirit closes a door..it always opens another…it will be interesting to see what I am in store for next…my Spirit work is far from over…