... which is why every time some clown posts how "great the stock market is doing" crap, it makes a fair number of us say so "so what?" or worse. It simply means the very rich just got very richer to most of us.

... everything must be just fine for all of us. Pardon me for stating mine and many others opinion that have to "invest" what little money we do have into just staying alive.

your "conclusions" are SO far off the mark they are laughable

Consider it done. Bye bye.

LOL, taking your ball and running home

Plenty of us on this board have money in the market and we got our asses kicked when the market crashed. The market rebounding has helped plenty of people you seem to want to dismiss because they have more than you and you behave as if this makes you a better Democrat which what is truly laughable. And most of us can in no way be defined as rich.

always coming to weird "conclusions" that are WAY off the mark - I'm beginning to really wonder

you do not have to be rich to have some stock; not by a LONG shot

in their old age.

Individuals also save in their 401ks but they aren't as lucky as those with pensions.

The travesty is if only the rich benefit. The solution is to participate.

When the stock market is rallying is when it's time to get out.

When it's tanking is when it's time to get in. Buy low, sell high. The stock market never works out for middle and working class people.

How many times do they have to take advantage of 'investors' before people learn that the game is rigged.

why do pension funds continue to invest there?

I think the main point is not so much market valuations, but the fact that companies are thriving while the work force continues to suffer. Cash is piling up in corporate accounts while people on main street are doing without.

Rising stock values are a good thing, but you have to have money to invest in the first place in order get any benefit.

Unless you're getting out. I know you already know that from a different post of yours, but if my investments are worth a thousand dollars more than what I have invested, it isn't worth anything unless I sell it. Tomorrow - I could lose it all and then some.

When the stock market starts to go up, that means that 'they' are fixing to fleece the new generation of investors unfamiliar with history.

I'd guess about 4 or 5 years, and then in September or October look for it to crash again.

Until you cash out, you really haven't won anything.

I tend to view stocks as part-ownership in the underlying businesses. And once the valuation gets higher than I think is warranted by the fundamentals of the company, I sell.

I'll go to all cash if I think the situation calls for it. And I don't think it is time to do that yet, but I do feel more nervous than I have felt in quite some time. If I were closer to retirement, I would be raising lots of cash right now. But since I'm not, I figure I probably have plenty of time to ride out the eventual "correction" and still come out ahead.

This time it might happen toward the end of August (in whatever year it happens). I only know that there will be a correction.

I expect a person could graph the rise and fall of the stock market and develop a model where you could predict the year of the next correction, of course certain industries are going to do worse than others based on their product's potential future market.

I'm told that Joe Kennedy cashed in his stocks when his 'shoe shine' started talking stocks to him. That's when you know it's time to get out, when it's so popular to be in, that the kid mowing your lawn has stocks.

If I were czar, I'd put a stop to it.

The time to go all-in was four years ago. Conservative ideology - especially lack of adequate regulation - led to a financial disaster in 2008. Lots of people were terrified by the election of that socialist muslim commie athiest black guy, so they pulled their money out of the market and stayed out.

I knew that the steady, fiscally moderate, pragmatic man we elected could be nothing but a positive for the market, so I put my money where my mouth was and I doubled it.

Now, things are looking a little top heavy. I'd give a serious look at pulling anything out that wasn't invested for the true long-term.

The DOW and all who make their money with it can go to hell.

but don't hate the player.

the real way they are empowered is when we buy their products. Stop buying their products, and then you will have accomplished something.

Back when it really was the Dow Jones Industrial.

It was a select group of the top industries and was a measure of the sales of actual, physical products made by workers and sold to the public and overseas. That was back when the workforce had a seat at the table.

Now the DOW has things like BofA, insurance companies, Big Pharma, Big Oil and Walmart as indicators.

With 'take that' republicans and graphs attached.
I just think how does this help anyone really hurting in this country?

because of their ridiculous teabagger political beliefs and fear of our "wildly liberal" President.

But, you are right, the rise in the markets is meaningless to most people's ordinary lives.

"I fit in with the other 40 percent of Americans who really and truly don’t give a fuck about the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both hitting all-time record highs this month....In the last 40 years, income for the bottom 90 percent of Americans only rose by $59. Income for the top 10 percent rose by more than $116,000."

...other 50 percent in that 90 percent? Do they care? A lot of pensions were affected by the economic crisis.

Wall Street and Main Street, if they ever really had a healthy connection, seems to have lost it altogether. The many threads in our society, of those who work and were able to save - who are not the the enemy, or been employed by those got money to start up businesses from the firms that make up Wall Street and other groups, see their labor and efforts played with what feels like a casino.

It is not, when one considers those individuals who each and every one singly put in years of work to have the advantages they should get from that work - healthcare, homes, vehicles, education for their children (if possible) and a nest egg to retire with, usually their home, their biggest investment that sees them through their latter years without asking for help, is important.

People vote according to these things. It's hard as hell to get people to give those things up, nor should they. But the mixed system that gave us so much flexibility as individuals, public education, small loans, home loans, insurance, health care, annuities and other things to tide us through rough times, all built on the back of unions and a good manufacturing base are in disarray in many areas.

The tax base that kept up roads, schools, hospitals and services has been eroded. And hanging above it all is the sense that we have been cheated - but the fingerpointing often finds a focus that is not the real one.

From what I've seen in the last decade or more, Americans are so propagandized that they are no longer capable of seeing the big picture except the ones sold by conspiracy pundits. And they have their agendas, too.

I think the best thing we've got going is what we've always had - those who are coming up with new ideas of how to live with less, be more green and what will in the end, be an educated group of people who do go all the way to get things done.

And then the cycle begins all over again, as they will benefit from the stock market when they become the new elites that people love to hate.

Damn, it's complicated.

When house prices are up and investments are doing well it makes people feel like spending. That generates demand, and that helps poor people.

Government is the key player in making things better. The democracy needs to decide what the "general welfare" means.

that's where my 403b sits...I don't want to lose another 20k like in the last bubble.

The Depression was going on long before that for most Americans. The crash of 29 was not the cause but the effect of letting things run themselves. Keep in mind that the Stock Market neither makes nor loses money. It trades in paper with the number of shares printed on it and the value of those shares are in constant flux. It actually benefits Wall Street for money to be rare for the rest of us because rarity increases value.

...the stock market was supposed to be the way for companies looking for capital investment to go to the public rather than the banks. This capital investment was supposed to be just that, investment. This investment typically was used to grow a company's market share and, in so doing, create a situation whereby to meet demand, people would be hired as a result.

In truth, though, modern iterations of corporate management place way too much emphasis on cost cutting and cash management rather than growth, all to show good bottom lines to their short-term high-stakes gambler investors. The 'investment' ends up being the cream off the top used to pay exorbitant executive salaries, rather than reinvesting the in the company's production base, and therefore, its worker base. What large scale investors really look for these days is short term investment in companies which turn in good profits by cutting costs, not necessarily those with long term profitable visions, as the investor him/herself is a short-term gambler already. Invest a pile in a company. Company lays off 10% percent of its employees, cutting costs and making the bottom line look good for investors, company shows profit for the quarter, executives take a piece of the investment, investors bug out having made a tidy profit. Lather rinse repeat.

The so called investor class have turned the stock market into a casino, where betting against corporate success is as lucrative as betting for it, maybe even moreso. Were it different, maybe Main Street would have more to be excited about if the stock market rallies.

Stock markets are largely responsible for the massive concentration of wealth over the past 30-40 years that has sucked the life and health out of the people and the environment. It was a big mistake to surrender so much control of so much of the economy to corporations and their incentivizing/punishing stock market casinos. Both political parties have had a hand in it; some would say out of pure self-interest, to hell with "The People."

Incidentally, I'm guessing that one of the more hidden drivers behind the NRA and the out-of-control gun culture is the "economic royalty" and robber barons who demand uninhibited maximum protection from their many victims who may one day wake up and decide they want it back.

last I knew private security is subject to the same laws as private individuals.