That is interesting! Wish I had a copy of that newsletter to read, although often times newsletters just have nothing interesting.
I have a bad feeling indeed. Hope not to be caught pants down as us younger generations don't have a nice island to plant feet on... I often think about passive income, nice assets and would wish for an apartment in the center of town, even if to rent and make cash!
Real estate wise, Spain went back to a bubble like state and so the more things change the more of the same. Moved up to Scandinavia and read that housing appreciated 14% in a year. Jees.
Although shortly, having a poor man's mindset and working at a bank makes money thinking enjoyable. Even if we were teens in 2007, most people my generation don't have that vision of how things were. Blame my dad for pointing things before, during, and after the bust of '08.
Being crazy busy with some grad study stuff, moving "out of state" is nice and refreshing; enjoying so far the bustle, and it keeps my mind off money and crises.
I should pick up the push ups and chin ups routine I had months ago. At least 6mi bike commuting a day is being good, though I fall for the sugar too much.
Jorde,
PM me your e-mail and I will spam you. I get all kinds of newsletters.
I feel like I live in a bubble myself. Things like my health is my responsibility, and this is not the government's resposibility, meanwhile I see all these overweight and unfit people neglecting themselves. Pretty evident that diet and exercise could reduce the cost of healthcare here in the U.S., yet the government subsidizes the corn and sugar industries and has policies that support having the highest health care costs in the world.
Am I the only person who recognizes this?
A while back I discovered that at heart I'm an anthropologist because I study human nature, government organizations and policies, and urban civilization. This also deeply gets involved with politics, the government, and the economy.
I doubt someone with a MBA would have the interdisciplinary skills to intergrate the amount of data I compile and process.
If you have noticed, weather patterns now stagnate, so patterns are becoming very clear. Hurricane Harvey "stalled" over Houston and with over 10 inches of rain caused flooding on an unprecidented level. Temperatures are more extream with colder winters and hotter summers. Even further north like in Canada in Montreal they have reported heat related deaths. In London their infrastructure is unprepared for "heat waves."
Droughts and desertification is happening out in California and the Southwest.
So I live in a bubble, only because I take notice of what is happening. In last year's Photoville it was easy to connect the dots. I could see how global warming caused drought, then famine, then civil war that led to a refugee crisis, even though they were displayed in separate exhibits.
Perhaps it is better to say/claim that we all live in bubbles, because these calamities are in the news, but somehow under reported. You have to know that I am trained as a journalist and have a MA in TV Broadcast Journalism. The facts are out there, the truth is evident, but yet "Joe Smoe" lacks the training or critical thinking to fill in the blanks and get the bigger picture.
When I day-traded it required reading the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times cover-to-cover. On the weekends I would read the weekend edition of the Journal, and the Sunday Times as my "data-feed." This amount of understanding of complexity was time intensive, but it was easy to see that government and business is really the same thing.
A lot of what I see now is herd mentality. The danger is that passive investing now presently is a trend to the extent that that there really is no diversification, everyone is playing the same game, and when everyone reverts to a mob mentality and heads for the exits-selling the "regression to the mean" will be unprecidented. "Look out below," I say. Mucho sellers and no buyers. Pretty much assets for no money. The hard part is being patient, sticking with the plan, and just waiting. Delayed gratification at its best, but requires mucho discipline.
The way I see it the housing bubble and credit crisis was reinflated by a huge debt bubble that clearly is unsustainable. I have been sitting on a huge cash position for a while. I know I made my up mind when Trump got elected, I lost out on some pretty big gains since then, and the market looks to remain bullish for the next year or two ahead. I can tell you that sitting on cash is not easy, cash surely is taking a position on the market, and the uneasiness rivals trading in a margin account.
Pretty much I'm speculating that the next downturn might become labeled "The Greater Depression" (my term). Odds are a bit on my side and so is history. This is a long bull market, and bull markets don't last forever. The Trump pump via tax cuts during a time of relative prosperity will compound the losses, and to me this is like a "head fake."
It is known that it is very difficult to time the market. They also say a broken watch tells the right time twice a day, but my bet is that I have another year or two to get ready for the likely biggest sell off of my lifetime. 2007-2008 will look rather like a speed bump. This is my bet. The longest bull market in history will be compounded by a debt crisis, "Look out-below."
Also realize that the stock market is a "zero sum game" where over time only 10% are the winners and 90% are loosers. The money has to come from somewhere. I played that game once in 2007-2008 and won; now a decade later it is a different game. "Time is the best weapon" the Chinese say.
Cal
