All you hear on the news and in the papers is how we are in recession, going into recession, global recession or some combination of these terms. Well… I still remember the last big crash, September 11, 2001. I remember the markets being closed because the actual infrastructure that allows Wall Street to trade was damaged in the attacks. I was in college then and if I had invested my money then my financial situation would be very different today.

What is my point you ask? For all the small investors out there like me, do not listen to the news. Stop reading the headlines. We have been through worst and now is not the time to panic but to invest. Warren Buffet is probably the most successful investor ever and he says “To buy when people are fearful and be fearful when people are greedy.” I know what you may be thinking, he has billions of dollars, he does not care if he loses money. I can assure you he cares very much how his investments perform. Now granted he may not miss a mortgage payment if he loses a couple thousand or even a couple billion but the principal remains intact.

Great companies that not only have great balance sheets but a dividend to boot are trading at unprecedented lows. I encourage you to invest now, while stocks are at fire sale prices. ( This is my opinion , please always do your own due diligence and seek professional help as necessary. ) Buy strong stocks with a good yield and you will watch your wealth grow as sanity returns to Wall Street. You may argue that stocks continue to fall, well I say continue to buy. Because it just means you have good stocks at better and better prices. We need to stop perpetuating the dropping prices in stocks because we think the media knows best. Remember their job is to sell stories, not to make you wealthier. So why do we care what they say? We should not, we should invest, because if everyone was buying and not selling, we would all see plus signs on our statements , instead of red.

Matt

   I am sure like myself this is not surprising news to anyone. Money and greed corrupts people and causes them to act selfishly for their own benefit. Apparently this was the case at the Government backed institutions that were suppose to be helping Americans buy a home. Its easy to blame them, and all the other large corporations who continue to wallow in scandal that ultimately makes things more difficult and much more expensive for the average joe. Or more recently, the ” joe plumbers “ of the world. Their actions are not excusable , their complete lack of morals is unfathomable, but in the end no one made you buy the new car. No one made you buy the $400,000 house when you make $30,000 a year. I want the finer things like anyone else, but the current debacle of our economy has shown me that I am just as guilty for accumulating the amount of credit I know possess. Below is an excerpt with more reasons to be disappointed in the people who are suppose to be a “government of the people” .

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AP
AP IMPACT: Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign
Sunday October 19, 5:46 pm ET
By Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer 
AP IMPACT: Mortgage giant, GOP firm targeted Republican senators for defeat of regulatory bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
 
In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI’s chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain’s campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.

Freddie Mac’s payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel’s bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.

In the midst of DCI’s yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.

“If effective regulatory reform legislation … is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole,” the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.

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