Financially Are You Doing Better Than A Couple of Years Ago?

by minimus 31 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  WTWizard

  About the same--my silver will really go up when our dollar loses all value. And I have limited direct exposure to the stock market--whatever I lose from that, I will more than gain from my exposure to silver. The Dow can go to zero, and the dollar become toilet paper, for all I care.

  As for the virus causing financial hardships, that is also a nothingburger. It will make it impossible to get Chinese junk at all, but I have been replacing all my Chinese junk with better items during the last 10 years. That way, things should last until the whole virus thing is resolved or we start making things locally (fat chance of that). I do, however, expect a disruption of work (this will probably be widespread) for a week or so, and I have been preparing for a period of a few weeks to a couple of months where food is impossible to get at stores or quarantine is imposed. All of which will do nothing to deplete my silver stack--that will have to wait until the dollar becomes toilet paper.
• 

  LongHairGal

  WTWIZARD:

  You have long written about owning silver because you are understandably fearful of the dollar declining in value. From what I gather you would own a vast amount.

  I did a little research as to what is entailed if somebody wants to possess actual physical silver or gold (coins or bullion bars). You have to physically store it somewhere safe that nobody else knows about and where you can easily access it. (And no relative can steal it.) I assume you have your own home where you can hide it in trunks or stacks hidden in attics, inside walls or furniture. If you opt to bury it I assume it is on your own property where it can’t be accidentally uncovered by somebody else, etc. etc.

  If you go on certain forums or sites I assume your identity is hidden and you use an account that cannot be traced so your address cannot be discovered and you become the victim of a home invasion. Nobody on THIS forum has an incentive to track you down - but on forums like that somebody would be highly motivated!

  If you can do all this, I admire you. All of this doesn’t take into account that you cannot use silver bullion to buy food in the supermarket in an emergency.. It has to be converted first:..where and what is entailed?..How convenient or inconvenient to do this?

  This all sounds exhausting to me and you have to think like a pirate with buried treasure.

  I don’t know your age but what would happen when you get up there in years and don’t want to deal with all this?
• 

  snugglebunny

  Yup. State pension just went up by £40 a month.
• 

  Gorbatchov

  Here in The Netherlands, better then ever.

  G.
• 

  jp1692

  We hear how the economy is much healthier now.

  What a difference a couple of days can make!

  Here's the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the last 12 months:
  

  

  https://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=DJIA&insttype=Index
• 

  RubaDub

  Absolutely.

  Since Obama took over in 2009, there has been a bull market which just pumps up our 401k's.

  The market doubled under Obama. Great for my wife's and my 401k. Retirement will be nicer.

  With the Orange Man, we have to see. If he wants to take so much credit for the rise, he then must take the blame for the fall (actually per Fox News).

  Rub a Dub
• 

  Simon

  Let me guess, Obama now claims responsibility for everything up to last week, but no longer. Right?

  But when the markets recover, then it will be somehow because of Obama again ...
• 

  stan livedeath

  Yup. State pension just went up by £40 a month.

  eh ? how do you make that out , Snuggs ?
• 

  RubaDub

  Obama now claims responsibility for everything up to last week, but no longer. Right?

  Simon, Simon ...

  Come on. Obama is not claiming anything. I was just stating the facts.

  Wife and I have been contributing into 401k / IRA for years.

  The market doubled under Obama. That is all.

  If the Orange Man doubles it, God bless him.

  We can then retire sooner with a thicker 401k.

  Rub a Dub
  
  
• 

  just n from bethel

  From the time Obama was elected the market (s&p 500) went on to lose 33% of its value into his first year. In his first four years it still had not recovered. It took 6 years to get back to 2007 levels, mainly based on propped up fed policies previously put in place prior to him taking office.

  Anyone invested in equity markets during the entire tenure of Obama had to wait 6 years to get back what they lost. In the mean time anyone retiring during this period relying on fixed income saw yields deteriorate faster than any administration in history to levels that drastically cut normalized expected interest payments by 80% or worse. Thanks Obama and Janet. Technically, counting inflation and lost wages and home values, even after 6 years of Obama’s fiscal piggybacking the average joe was still behind, and don’t even get started on the actual demographics who put him in office but never had any exposure to financial markets to begin with.

  Their unemployment and wage growth didn’t see a recovery until Trump. Them the facts and hard numbers. Sorry to those that can’t do math. As for the few that got to participate in the Feds’ synthetic QE2 and unprecedented ridiculous rate reductions never before seen in any admin before 44, congrats! You had 1 year of finally getting a little more back than you lost in first 6 years of Obama and another yeah of flat returns. But probably not even that lucky if you include your home value and wage growth. If you want to call recouping your losses and a little more for a year so (excluding your real estate devaluations still far off peak to this day)- growth ... then you really really have some serious math deficiencies.

  The point is, 6 years to break even is nothing to cheerlead about. Retirees have to take substantial more risk to get desired income and yields. For the first time since Obama was even a known name the Fed tried to get real yields higher. Unfortunately the globally controlled swamp would have none of it. The game is played by the Fed and presidents are simply cheerleaders, sometimes wanna be coaches. Hopefully those who have been invested through the real market growth and gains since Trump , locked in profits going into this election year. Every year of his growth was at least real growth and not recouping losses like Obama.