Honestly what does retirement planning in America even look like anymore? The next five-ten years are looking to be extremely volatile both financially and politically. It almost feels more risky stockpiling a currency that may lose significant value or even devalue entirely if shit falls apart and/or global war breaks out.
You can’t eat your 401k, buy Mountain House foods by the bucket like your racist uncle! Or something.
If your retirement window is 5 years, you’re probably very very fucked.
If it’s 10 years, as long as you’re assuming social security is going to contribute $0, you’re probably still pretty fucked.
15 years? Maybe, but at that point that whole global climate change thing we’re ignoring is going to start getting more serious, so I’d wager on fucked.
20? Please, you’re already in the trenches of the Water Wars, so your retirement plan is machine gun when you go over the top, sorry.
Basically retirement is going to be you dying once your insurance lapses and someone coming along later to pick your corpse up and billing your family for doing so.
(I’d love to be proven wrong, but ‘What’s the worst most awful thing that could possibly happen’ seems to be the right choice these days.)
The US has been through turmoil before. Nearly every country in the world has had similar experiences. Unless you think the concept of capitalism is ending, just prepare for the future the way that’s been done for the last 100 years.
Personally I pulled everything out of index funds right before the market tanked. I know trying to time the market is a fool’s errand, but it was so obvious that the US was about to shit the bed.
Now if that money to will be worth anything in a few years I have no idea. If we pull through I will reinvest. I’m literally thinking about buying gold, something that I thought was stupid just a short time ago.
I have no illusions about the intrinsic value of gold, but I read that JP Morgan Chase flew $4 billion in gold to their vault in NYC a month ago. Other big banks are doing the same.
Fuck the big banks, don’t get me wrong, but they know about risk and hedging.
9/10 times you’ll miss the dip and get behind the curve. You have no idea how the market is going to react in the next 6 weeks, much less in the next 6 years.
Trump could have just as easily not implemented the two days of tariffs and the market could have gone up.
Now that the tariffs are off again, the market might bounce back higher than ever on Monday and you’re going to miss the bounce.
Of course he might say something incredibly stupid tonight and the market crashes, but again, 9/10 times pulling money out of the market means opportunities lost, not bullets dodged.
You’re totally right and normally I would ride the dip. But we’re not in normal times. I’m thinking recession inevitable, depression possible. I’ll try not to miss the bottom of the dip, but that could be years from now. I’m happy with my decision.
He will say something incredibly stupid just about every day, you can take that to the bank. After delaying the tariffs again he announced 250% tariff against Canadian dairy because he misunderstood their variable tariff protection scheme. Even if the tariffs never officially come to pass, this on and off shit is terrible. The market is irrational but it hates uncertainty.
Honestly what does retirement planning in America even look like anymore? The next five-ten years are looking to be extremely volatile both financially and politically. It almost feels more risky stockpiling a currency that may lose significant value or even devalue entirely if shit falls apart and/or global war breaks out.
You can’t eat your 401k, buy Mountain House foods by the bucket like your racist uncle! Or something.
If your retirement window is 5 years, you’re probably very very fucked.
If it’s 10 years, as long as you’re assuming social security is going to contribute $0, you’re probably still pretty fucked.
15 years? Maybe, but at that point that whole global climate change thing we’re ignoring is going to start getting more serious, so I’d wager on fucked.
20? Please, you’re already in the trenches of the Water Wars, so your retirement plan is machine gun when you go over the top, sorry.
Basically retirement is going to be you dying once your insurance lapses and someone coming along later to pick your corpse up and billing your family for doing so.
(I’d love to be proven wrong, but ‘What’s the worst most awful thing that could possibly happen’ seems to be the right choice these days.)
Same as every other time in the US’s existence.
Invest in an index fund, let money sit. Repeat.
The US has been through turmoil before. Nearly every country in the world has had similar experiences. Unless you think the concept of capitalism is ending, just prepare for the future the way that’s been done for the last 100 years.
Personally I pulled everything out of index funds right before the market tanked. I know trying to time the market is a fool’s errand, but it was so obvious that the US was about to shit the bed.
Now if that money to will be worth anything in a few years I have no idea. If we pull through I will reinvest. I’m literally thinking about buying gold, something that I thought was stupid just a short time ago.
I have no illusions about the intrinsic value of gold, but I read that JP Morgan Chase flew $4 billion in gold to their vault in NYC a month ago. Other big banks are doing the same.
Fuck the big banks, don’t get me wrong, but they know about risk and hedging.
9/10 times you’ll miss the dip and get behind the curve. You have no idea how the market is going to react in the next 6 weeks, much less in the next 6 years.
Trump could have just as easily not implemented the two days of tariffs and the market could have gone up.
Now that the tariffs are off again, the market might bounce back higher than ever on Monday and you’re going to miss the bounce.
Of course he might say something incredibly stupid tonight and the market crashes, but again, 9/10 times pulling money out of the market means opportunities lost, not bullets dodged.
You’re totally right and normally I would ride the dip. But we’re not in normal times. I’m thinking recession inevitable, depression possible. I’ll try not to miss the bottom of the dip, but that could be years from now. I’m happy with my decision.
He will say something incredibly stupid just about every day, you can take that to the bank. After delaying the tariffs again he announced 250% tariff against Canadian dairy because he misunderstood their variable tariff protection scheme. Even if the tariffs never officially come to pass, this on and off shit is terrible. The market is irrational but it hates uncertainty.
The first rule of investing is accepting you are not smarter than the market.
Not having that money invested is a huge mistake.
I’m looking to invest in hesco and fiocchi