False and misleading stories.

I would like to start off by laughing at the stock market and those that invest in it. I would like to say that I feel sorry for those people currently investing, but I won't. Why? Well I do not believe that the hard working people in this country are the ones investing. It seems that it is those that still have disposable income to work with. Part of the reason I see the market going up and down.


The real people are not investing anymore. No one wants to invest in something they will lose at.

This is how I see it going; Those with tons of money and interest in certain stocks may be investing in their favorite stock or in a company they own. Naturally this brings up the price. But there is no interest in owning that stock by the working class people. They want to hold on to what little they have. Naturally one person or even a few cannot sustain purchasing many stocks and the price continues to fall. For the most part people have proved that they cannot be fooled again. Not by the brokers, not by the media, and certainly not by the companies that desperately want and need that investment money.



I really LOVE the fact that people now view the media as if it were the "TRASH" news that is at the checkout lane at the supermarket! I have always known, since I was about 10 years old, that most people DID believe in the media and would go in the direction the media pointed them. However, the media always had a couple of bogus stories that could just be forgotten about, and life went on. In the last ten years though, the media has consistently shown that they jump the gun to be the first to get a story out and in the course of that haste there was little research and it goes to press as fact. The problem nowadays is that most people have already looked at information before it became news. They were already aware of the facts and when the media puts out their own version of what they think is fact, they lose what little confidence the people did have left in them.



You have seen it over the years. For example how many times have you heard that drug use is at a record low? MANY TIMES! And then you head out to the store and along the way you see people selling drugs on the street corner, kids heading off into the woods behind the mall after the parents drop them off, they certainly were not going to a movie!! The drugs being pulled out of your local schools, etc, etc! And then a week later you spot a little one paragraph story buried in the newspaper that states drug use is at an all time high? Hmmmm, who got it right? Ah yes it feels good to know that the majority of people no longer exhibit the "blindly following the lead" attitude of many years ago.


Those in power will try to steer the very people who put them there, in any direction they so choose. I will give a recent example of this, and it comes in the form of my 401K choices. Back in 1999 I could see the writing on the wall and decided to through a good chunk of my investments into International funds, after all that is where everything was going. I eventually changed jobs but was able to keep that 401K with that company. For whatever reasons the 401K provider was changed and one day as I looked at my statement and tried to understand why I lost $3000.00 in the quarter, I noticed that all my "elective" funds, were in domestic stocks. Naturally I called the provider demanding to know why my electives were changed. I was informed that since I did not return the form, that was never sent to me, they placed it all in domestic stocks of their choosing which was close to my original choices. When I pointed out that the ones they chose for me was almost identical to the domestic stock I chose originally minus the International Funds, I then received a letter a few days later that explained I could only invest a certain amount in the International funds and because my original percentage choice was higher than allowed, it all went to domestic. Real nice I thought.
Now I am not allowed to invest where I know I can make money and I was basically forced to take what they wanted me to have. Just another point about how the rich get richer and the poor will stay poor. I bet those with hundreds of thousands into their 401K were not forced to take losers.



We have always been misled and the people are not putting up with it anymore. You say you want proof of this? Okay. Pick any article that is online that is on any hot topic today, economics, jobs, housing, health etc.

Read the article and form your opinion. Now go all the way to the bottom of the page and read the comments posted by the people who have read them. If you were not an informed person about the subject, which way did your opinion go? Did it go in the direction of the author? Did it match the majority of opinions on the article? You may be surprised!! I blindly followed one article just the other day and I did disagree on how they came up with their figures. I then read the comments and found things I really did not look at. They made simple math mistakes which put them in an even harsher light to me. Essentially, my thoughts after I double checked figures were this... First was that it proved my point about the idiots in charge steering our direction, who in turn, hire more idiots to come up with data that is incorrect. My other thought was that it was such a basic math problem that any 2nd grader could have got it right, and now it seemed that numbers were just thrown out there to prove their point that does not exist.


Whatever happened to research? Research is the most valuable thing in this world, and the only thing more important, is knowing how to do that research. As an engineering person, my top talent is research. I have used it to not only produce a top quality product, but as a tool to keep informed of many new products and technologies in the industry. When I was presented with a problem during an engineering meeting, I usually had 4-5 ideas before the meeting was over.

I have been told that we will need to design a certain product to be used in an assembly of a final product. The explanation by the top engineer was that nothing exists for our application. I would later explain to the engineer that there is indeed a product on the market and would proceed to give him all the information he required to fit it in our design. Over the years I have adapted products from one technology into another technology and saved the company I worked for from a few bucks to thousands! I reported on research ACCURATELY, not slipshod and from the hip of what I think I know. I have learned more than a school could have ever taught me in a lifetime. All from thorough research. After all you can't tell a machine to work just because you THINK you got the right part.



Nowadays if you want to get your position across to the masses, be prepared to do your research thoroughly and present the data that is relevant, but your research may make you believe differently so be prepared! Perhaps that is the other side of it. These people did their research and found that they could NOT prove their point and decided to just throw it out there and in the process messed up the fake data they presented.


In any case I think the point I have made is that, the people today are more informed than ever and the combined brains of the masses are far superior to those people who THINK they are in charge and know better than everyone else! Now if we can just get the informed masses to speak out and get the idiots off the podium.