How long till your personal investments recover?

On Sunday Ben Bernanke stated on 60 Minutes that he could not see is shadow and that the end of the recession would come in 6 weeks. Oh wait, that's wrong, I've confused him with some groundhog, but he did say that the end of the recession is near. That's likely wishful thinking. But if it is the end, how long 'til we recover?

For awhile I couldn't even look at my 401(k) which seemed to getting slimmer by the minute. I just wanted to close my eyes and hope that someone would wake me and tell that this had all been a bad dream. But I've made some changes and slowed down my losses.

My friend, Michelle, told me about a handy calculator on The New York Times site that would estimate how long it could take to recover lost investments. It gave me something like this:

I love calculators. Though I know there are basically just guestimations they help me see things more concretely. But, Ugh! Not any risk assessment test could have predicted how hard many of us were hit by the downturn. But at this point there is nothing to do but accept it, hunker down, change my risk tolerance and move on.

Go see how long your recovery will be.

Bernanke's Crystal Ball

Ben Bernanke told 60 Minutes, "we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time."

Hey that's great, but how does he know? I asked the Magic Eight Ball and it told me to Ask Again Later.

Sorry to be a Debby Downer, but we're probably just beginning to see massive trickle down on Main Street. With more bank failures popping up each week and big businesses closing everywhere, I'm apt to listen more to my Magic Eight Ball.

An article by the Associated Press consults several economists on the issues of jobs, housing, and stocks. Basically they all say agree that no one knows when we'll see the economy bottom out.

According to Economist Sophia Koropeckyj, a managing director at Moody's Economy.com the two signs that the economy is in recover are: an inching up in companies hiring temporary workers and a rise in the number of hours worked by those who have managed to keep their part-time and full-time jobs.

It's too early to see if the President's Recovery plan will work. So, I'm not sure what Bernanke is trying to sell, but good for him for embracing the power of positive thinking.

By now I'm sure you know the real reason everything has come crashing around us, but just in case you weren't sure...it's Allen Greenspan's fault. Just check out this video, it does a nice job of explaining it all.

Government Grant Scams

Government grant scams have been around for a long time, but with the passing of the President's Stimulus Program Internet scammers are popping up like spring daffodils.

You might be curious if there is government money available for you. It is true that searching through the Gov's database is time consuming and a bit overwhelming, but don't believe any website or person that tells you they can provide an easy to read/understand grant list.

I typed in "stimulus grants" into my web browser to see what would come up. If you are familiar with the Google layout you know the first things that appear are sponsored links (a.k.a. paid advertising) they are located at the top and right of your screen. After that you'll find unpaid articles and websites. Many of the right hand links contain the words "Free" or even "Warning". These headlines may make you think that they are useful sites. I clicked a couple, one that said "Free" and another that said "Government Grant Scam". Both led me to sites that looked like blogs, but in actuality are advertising. The blog-like text in both tries to sound like they are on your side. They offer advice like "Our top pick is The Grant University which is 100% free" and "After 6 months of testing, and after trying several grant kits on the market our team has created a list of the best grant products currently being sold."

Usually the site promises free information that comes on a CD. You only need to pay shipping, but to do that you must provide a credit card and agree to the terms. NOTE: Terms is the biggest tip that this is a scam. The terms state that you'll get a free or trial membership of some kind. Often after 30 days you'll then be charged a monthly fee and sometimes an automatic one-time fee for some so-called benefit.

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These sites althought less than reputable are not illegal. The premise behind the scammer business model is also not a new one. To get real, free information on government grants go right to the source. The Government has a fairly easy to navigate grant site call Grants.gov. Only official U.S. Government sites can use the .gov extension on URLs. You might also look at Recovery.gov.