Quote:
Originally Posted by Z-man
Well, Tabs, you do have same valid reasoning behind your logic.
Here’s my $0.42:
1. Lots of folks in the US didn’t learn from the dot.com bubble nor the 2007/2008 housing crisis. Those who did are likely heading into retirement off of their nest eggs. Further: the current financial “playas” didn’t live through those eras where there was swift and vast financial collapse. (Required viewing to come up to speed on these eras: The Big Short & Valley of the Boom)
2. While the gobberment continues to print more Monopoly money, the average American consumer has leveraged their borrowing power and pushed themselves way beyond any safety nets they may think are in place. Sadly, debt is no longer a four-letter word.
3. The next generation of young adults feel no obligation to work hard for their money, but rather have an expectation that someone, anyone, will bail them out of their financial mess. (Here’s a solution of the current student debt crisis: you borrowed it, you pay it back!)
4. The US is losing ground in the tech and technology-as-a-service sectors. Yes, the POTUS did a lot to bring back manufacturing to the US, and got more Americans working. But are they the right jobs for a sustainable future? Do Americans want those jobs? Are the salaries from those jobs able to sustain our consumer-oriented, borrow heavy society?
5. Oh yeah - and there’s this global pandemic going on - which will take years to get out of, financially speaking. This black swan event only accelerated what may be to come if we continue going down this road.
Does this mean that I’m going to sell all my wares and build a log cabin in the woods and stock up on spoons? Nope - not at all. What it does mean is that I am going to focus on old school financial methods: live BELOW your means, pay off your debts, save up for the future, and diversify your investments in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Maybe even precious metals.
...and if my plan works out, I will buy a small island in the Pacific (Perhaps Ban Island?), declare myself “Supreme Ruler Zoltan,” and tell the penguins to keep marching....
Or maybe I should just stick my head in the sand with the hopes that everything will be ok tomorrow...
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#1. That insight about the current crop of financial Playa's was put out there by myself about 10 years ago disseminated to CR and CNBC in particular.
One afternoon I sent CR an email about the Arab Spring...that evening in Cairo he repeated what I had sent him. Later it was repeated by BO's National Security Adviser, who later went to the UN as ambassador after Susan Rice stuck her foot in her mouth.
#2. In the 1980's Ronnnie told the American people that they were "Exceptional" as they handed out the Credit Cards so that the delusion of being a prosperous nation could be maintained.. That was the beginning of the Debt Bubble that went bust in 08, has been papered over with more printing and borrowing till now. Now the ability to continue down that road has suddenly become an iffy proposition. The wobble in the financial system occurred on 9/17/19 when the overnight lending rate went to 10%, the FED stepped in with 200B in liquidity and had to continue to do so through December 2019.
#3. Living in an indulgent, instant gratification society where all needs are taken care of and that is the parents.
#4. The answer is no on two counts. First American jobs are paying less due to Global wage competition and secondly The Global Economy of Scale has grown to proportions where the US consumer can not consume enough of the product produced to sustain that economy.
#5. See #2. The CV was only the match that lit the fuse. Even before the CV in 9/17/19 the Financial system wobbled like a boxer who had taken one too many punches. So the answer is the US in particular had already crashed so we had already gone down that road and were coming to it's end. The last chance to turn this around was squandered in the response to the 08 crisis. We didn't learn anything. To know that all you have to do is listen to the Boyz on this Board...
Including yourself. All you have worked and saved for is all for naught. Those accounts that you have may look fat but the value of it has been stolen away in the night by incessant printing of currency. The joke is on you and those like you who think that the old paradigm still applies.. Why do you think that a cash rich company like Apple would leverage itself to the hilt?
The answer is so that they could buy back their own stock and watch it rise in value. So they made more money doing that than they could by making and selling product. In a way they are hedging their position against the decline in value of the currency. Equity prices have become inflated..in the face of a declining USD. BTW seeing and understanding this sort of insight is a quality that gets listened to.