{"id":196331,"date":"2008-05-06T19:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/05\/06\/economics-update-465\/"},"modified":"2008-05-06T19:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-07T00:44:00","slug":"economics-update-465","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/05\/06\/economics-update-465\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People are now shocked that <a href=\"http:\/\/iht.com\/articles\/reuters\/2008\/05\/06\/business\/OUKBS-UK-FANNIE-MAE-POSTS-ANOTHER-LOSS-TO-CUT-DIVI.php\">Fannie Mae has posted a $2.51 billion loss and cut its dividend<\/a>.  Do I need to quote Claude Raines in Casablanca?<\/p>\n<p>Oil <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/05\/06\/markets\/oil.ap\/index.htm?cnn=yes\">set another new record, $122.73<\/a>, before settling at $121.84.  Any bets on when we hit $130 for the first time?<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB120994246231866045.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\">this tidbit from the Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>And in a more-worrisome trend, borrowing from these retirement plans is surging. At the end of last year, 18% of workers had loans outstanding from their plans, up from 11% in 2006, according to a survey of 2,011 full-time employees released in February by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a nonprofit corporation funded by Aegon NV&#8217;s Transamerica Life Insurance Co. With home prices falling nationwide, the loans may be a sign that cash-strapped consumers are raiding their nest eggs to stay afloat, no longer able to tap their houses for cash and up against their credit-card limits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a foreseeable consequence of defined contribution plans, and notwithstanding the Randroid utopian claims, it has always been the problem with having people make a bet in which, if they die young, they win.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the YOYO (You&#8217;re On You&#8217;re Own) society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People are now shocked that Fannie Mae has posted a $2.51 billion loss and cut its dividend. Do I need to quote Claude Raines in Casablanca? Oil set another new record, $122.73, before settling at $121.84. Any bets on when we hit $130 for the first time? Finally, we have this tidbit from the Wall &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,1135,1004],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-energy","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}