by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC RSP
Stocks closed out the market's biggest quarterly drop since the financial crisis in 2008, a 12% decline in the Dow AND the S&P just for Q3 2011 (the NASDAQ declined by over 14%). If you took your income tax free personal injury settlement and placed $1,000,000 in the market in July, you could be sitting on $850,000 to 880,000 right now.
If you are an attorney and decided not to structure your $1,000,000 attorney fee you would be facing a similar loss as your client with the double whammy of income taxes due on the full amount (less any tax deductions) in April 2012.
Home prices are unlikely to recover to 2007 levels before 2020 and mortgage defaults will persist for years, says almost 50% of bank risk managers surveyed by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association for FICO.
Bankers also appear to be pessimistic about recovery in consumer spending, with 64 percent of respondents expecting credit card usage to remain below pre-recession levels for at least five more years.
Will Rogers Quotes from The Depression Era
"Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic situation? We spent six years of wild buying on credit – everything under the sun, whether we needed it or not – and now we are having to pay for 'em, and we are howling like a pet coon.
This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler." June 27, 1930
"When Wall Street took that tail spin, you had to stand in line to get a window to jump out of, and speculators were selling space for bodies in the East River… You know there is nothing that hollers as quick and as loud as a gambler." Oct. 24, 1929
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