I am motivated to write this letter on behalf of all citizens who are over 55 years of age who have saved and sacrificed during their working years to build a nest egg to supplement Social Security.

Most of us have put this money in our 401K or IRAs, investing carefully in an age-related allocation split between stocks and bonds, only to see our life savings reduced by 40 to 50 percent in the past four months, due to the accelerated decline in the stock market.

Knowing we cannot bleed any further, we have staggered to the sidelines into safer investments like bonds and money market accounts. My contention is that those losses are now permanent. Who among us, at our age, is willing to gamble with the remaining 50 percent in the stock market, with hopes of recovering our retirement money. We can never replace our losses and will have to live with the consequences.

I, like many others, had hoped that the new administration would not do business as usual but would take a new creative approach to solve the dilemma caused by the housing bubble and the outrageous bank lending that propelled the problem. Instead the president has offered a king-size dose of pessimism, mind-boggling reckless spending, and blatant attempts to destroy capitalism. Is it any wonder the stock value of even excellently managed companies has tanked?

The administration’s lack of experience and fervor to destroy an economic system that has brought this country prosperity for 230 years is irresponsible. This was not the change I had hoped for!

ROBERT ROSIPAJLA
Cedaredge

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.