Strollen
4018
Marketwatch and Marketplace are different. Marketplace is part of American Public Media, and skews left. Marketwatch is part of Dow Jone is mostly print/web and is right. There are both decent source of financial news.
ShivaX
4019
MarketWatch has always struck me as another CNBC.
Just completely disconnected from reality because they’re all stock market people or the like that live in big cities and think their examples of “average people” is accurate and relevant despite being so painfully out of touch that it’s indistinguishable from a parody of them.
Yes, one is lead by Kai Ryssdai and his team (sadly, Molly Woods podcast series ‘How we Survive’ landed her a new job with Investment firms to help invest in clean energy).
On the face of it, it seems a better group, able to get interviews with more interesting people, such as Dr. Janet Yellen, Obama, and Almond Farmers, truckers and all sorts or regular people and business.
Oh, and helped create this wonderful song Dessa - Who's Yellen Now? (Official Lyric Video) - YouTube
Honestly, I haven’t read or heard much of Marketwatch that makes me want to follow it.
CraigM
4021
Yeah I definitely transposed Marketplace with Markertwatch. Marketplace is on NPR. They’re ok from my exposure.
Are they trying to present these people as average? I run into MarketWatch links now that I am doing some searches related to retirement and they always seem to clearly recognize that the audience that they are aiming at isn’t average. Which makes sense; it seems clear that there is a niche in financial and lifestyle articles for the upper middle class.
Marketwatch is more targeted than either CNBC or the Wall Street Journal. 15% of Americans own individual stocks perhaps 5% are active traders. I use to be the target audience for Market Watch, and occasional would take advantage of their subscription promos.
Let’s not kid ourselves that any NPR or PBS show represent average Americans. Just over 10% of Americans listen to NPR, a show like Marketplace has 14 million listeners, exactly the same as the number of accredited investors. My favorite show has PBS Newshour has just over 1 million viewers.
CraigM
4024
There is a distinct difference between being something that the average American watches/ listens to, and one that editorially looks at things from their perspective.
Just because the average American is an idiot, does not mean that an NPR show is so out of touch from their daily reality.
The WSJ was alerting us to the financial hardships of single people making almost a quarter-mil nearly a decade ago
This.
It’s like this thread is now turning to being shocked that individual rich people exist. Is “income inequality” about systemic issues or is it about being outraged that there are rich people, that they have savings, and that they plan/worry about retirement?
Alstein
4027
I think it’s more folks don’t feel these folks need to be catered to economically, they’re doing fine. Low-end millionaries are not the problem. Billionaires, and the power structures on America that give them too much power, are.
Also, some general feeling that folks need to concentrate on the folks that do need help, who earn 5% of that.
An obvious rhetorical question with equally obvious answer.
Alstein
4029
There are folks who genuinely believe the way Stepsongrapes says, and that rhetoric was pretty common among a lot of folks here. I don’t think it’s the case much anymore, but a few years ago certainly.
My parents in particular say this sort of thing all the time, which infuriates me as they’re not rich by any stretch (they live on around $3,000/mo in retirement, they’re secure, but they’re not rich)
She’s rich as fuck, might as well spend it on turning her kid into a mutant.
Thrag
4032
I take it as more of mocking the economic anxiety of people whose economic anxiety is “can we keep the second house” rather than “will I be able to make rent”.
Though that said, yeah, it’s not like letters to marketwatch are supposed to or advertised as representing the average american family (and the 12 gallons of milk a week they require).
There are folks (including my family 40 years ago when we just immigrated to this country) who could justifiably mock my current economic anxieties (e.g., are we earning/saving enough for our kids’ college and for our retirement), when they are just trying to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Is my economic anxiety somewhat silly in view of theirs? Absolutely. Nevertheless, I spend time and energy trying to address my anxieties. While I don’t write to marketwatch, I do consult with professionals and experts, in addition to doing my own research. Am I supposed to feel guilty about that, on a daily basis, because a fair amount of this country has less? Hell, if we look beyond this country, then you have an even larger body of people who could mock probably each and everyone of us.
Thrag
4034
Others might disagree, but I’m going to go with no.
I’m not sure anyone is asking you to feel guilty. At most I think the request is to engage in a chuckle over those that do write into marketwatch.
As someone who’s read literally hundreds of these letters (in the form of forum posts) and has responded to scores the answer isn’t always so obvious.
I remember one where the guy was in his mid 50s, was making $500K+ , 4 million in saving, millions of dollars in equity in the Manhattan condo. His wife was urging him to retire cause the job was killing them.
On the other hand, they had elderly parents and teen-age twins with Down syndrome. Their expense of 300K year on one level sound ridiculous, but they understandable didn’t want to take the twins out their school and NYC is crazy-expensive. This type of lifestyle was nicely satirized in Bonfire of the Vanities (the book not the awful movie). The financial and psychological impact of retirement are tricky, and getting advice on the subject makes tons of sense.
Now don’t get me wrong the normal answer is hell yes you can retire. People retire all the time with 1/3, 1/5, of 1/10 of your asset/income. Then the question becomes psychological, are you terrified of being bored, will that much time with your wife lead to a divorce, are all your friends at work…
You’ve answered the question you asked a few comments ago: the marketwatch article presents a relatively silly concern as if we ought to take it particularly seriously, in part because the people at marketwatch are spectacularly out of touch with the real problems of most people, but more so because they have an agenda. If the only thing happening here was marketwatch (or e.g. the WSJ) catering to the handful of people with that relatively silly concern, it wouldn’t be so bad, but what marketwatch and WSJ and others are doing, the very reason they exist, is attempting to influence policy to improve the lot of those with the relatively silly concern at the expense of everyone else.
Alstein
4037
In my case, I worry frequently whether my savings are enough right now, but it’s a much smaller figure, and I have some long-term insecurity and short-term mega expense.
I’m so fucking behind on retirement saving. Being laughably underpaid for the first 15 years of your adult life will do that.
