Investment experts say the evolving credit crisis could have a profound impact on individual investors, from working longer to pay for retirement to living more frugally [ read Post-Gazette story. ]

How do you think the crisis will impact you?

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  We have been planning for several years to buy or build a new home next year.  However, with the increasing credit crisis looming over our heads and stricter requirments for home purchases we are going to wait.  And even with above average incomes, my wife and I will think twice about borrowing for a new car, booking a vacation or making any major purchases that could adversely affect our credit.  We certainly will not be adding any investments to our portfolio. 

Everything from the tax laws, to inflation, to interest rates are designed to discourage saving money, but I think that is exactly what we are going to do.  Even if we just stuff it into a shoe box, at least we will not be losing large chunks of it like our investments.  When we open the box it will all still be there.

Get out while you can!

We are in serious trouble here. The mainstream media is just now starting to talk about what people like Paul Craig Roberts and Joseph Stiglitz have been saying for a year. Paul Craig Roberts was the assistant of the Treasury Department under Reagan and he says we're going into a depression. He also says that we're very close to nuclear war with Russia right now.

Joseph Stiglitz was an insider to the World Bank while he served as Chief Economist there. He is also a two-time Nobel Prize Winner. He believes that we're going into a major depression that will actually be worse than the Great Depression.

And today on Yahoo.com, the most trafficked website in the world, They have an article titled, "Top Economist: Americans Should Worry About Bank Deposits if Congress Doesn't Act." You definitely have something to worry about when the most heavily trafficked website in the world carries an article with this title on it's main page.

This crises was started by design, and it IS a classic Ponzi-Scheme. Get your money out of the banks before there's a full run on them!

I don’t think a run on banks, by savers removing their deposits, will result in any customer losing his/her money, if these deposits are under advertised insured limits. If your savings exceed insured limits, you will probably lose any accumulated interest on excessive funds and have to wait until insured amounts are covered before you can withdraw the non-insured cash, and that could take months or years!

If you think my opinion is bogus, and you are planning on withdrawing your savings and hiding them in a box, or drawer, or safe, don’t waste your time -- if the banks fail, paper currency will be almost worthless, and you’ll be penniless in a few weeks.

Take that paper currency and buy silver or gold. Many wealthy hedgers have bags of pre-1965 quarters that they plan to use if a total financial collapse materializes.

Please, please, please heed this advice, so if these dire predictions materialize, you will  have something of value left from years of conscientious nest egg building.

Again, I don’t see this scenario unfolding, but I also thought bottled water and satellite radio were doomed to fail!

I agree with Pahuntr that our financial system is designed to discourage saving money in banks. Savers are ridiculed for being too conservative, but if this country had massive monetary reserves in bank savings accounts and CDs, our national debt, if we had any, would be manageable. America will never have a stable dollar until we get our debt obligations under control.

People who save money to pay for their children’s educations and retirement should be applauded and rewarded. The government should help citizens who help themselves, and not reward prodigals who are sybarites. I think the underprivileged need a helping hand, but not conspicuous consumers, who live beyond their adequate means.

I don't know who you support in this election, but neither candidate has proposed a competent plan for fixing our economy and that's disgraceful!

 If you want to buy, now is the time. That is if you have a few years before you retire anyway, it is a buyers market right now. What does trouble me is the bail out. Why? Let them go bankrupt. The community act under Jimmy Carter back in the 70's is now coming to bite us in the behind. That and Clinton making it broader in the 90's. They company's where/are lending money to people to buy houses they can't or couldn't pay for. Saying that, it is not the Feds problem or responsibility to bail them out. If they go bankrupt let them. Why should my or your tax dollars be used to bail these guys out? Would they bail you out? Only the strong survive. Some other company would buy up what is left and go from there. I do not like the Feds becoming a mortgage company, no how no way. The less Goverment in our lives the better off we are. Let the free market correct itself as it should.

I empathize everyone's concern but why would you not add to your investments when prices and valuations are at multi-year lows? Does it make sense to wait until you feel better and then pay more when valuations are higher? Maybe you haven't noticed but Warren Buffet has been on a buying spree over the past year - buying quality assets that fearful people are selling emotionally, not rationally. Today he plucked off Constellation Energy at a bargain price - pity the sellers.

Reagan was sworn in 28 years ago next January and the Dow closed at 951 on his inauguration day. With the Dow well over 11,000 after today's close, this works out to be a compound annual growth rate of more than 9% BEFORE dividends and taking into account all of the geopolitical messes that we've been through since he saved us from feckless Jimmy Carter. At 9%, that's more than twice the rate of inflation and it should allow most any prudent life long investor the opportunity to build a quality portfolio by retirement.

Be of good cheer and buy what others are irrationally selling.