>>However, honesty is important. My consistent statement, for years, has been this: no one knows how these twin crises, economic and financial, will evolve.<<
basically, you have nothing to add here. we already all know that we don't anything with absolute certainty. you have zero insight into anything. thanks for clarifying this.
however, the rest of us need as model to make decision to prepare for the most likely future we will face.
most of us do it based on the idea that the trends of the future already exist in the trends of today.
for example, my 401k contributions were maxed out (i don't anticipate a solvent social security, the math doesn't work) and i put all my contributions into a money market fund over the last 10 years or so.
in early 2000, i received a nice severance package and used it to pay off a condo rental in full - while friends urged me to put it into tech stocks. i didn't know the nasdaq wasn't going to go to 10k, right?
the tech stocks collapsed and our condo was still paid off.
people who think like you, who argue one can't know the future, poured their money into the stock market and ended up losing their collective behinds.
people like me have a condo paid off and are net up when everyone else is down big and put the economy on the edge of collapse.
even though i wanted to, i didn't trade up in homes due to the absurd housing prices relative to incomes. nobody "knew" that housing would top out at a triple against flat income (hey, it could go up 10x, right? you can't prove it can't!), but i placed my bet and stayed put.
now it looks like my next home will be purchased at least 50% the high. probably more. big win for me. again.
people like you bought at the highs in this market because it was impossible to know that housing would ever go down. just maybe, housing goes up forever. it is possible.
i refied out 30 years at 4.75% and took my first cash out loan ever - even though i only had about 9 years left on my mortgage.
now i have extra cash in case the economy worsens and my wife or i lose our job. we can wait out a 5 year slump with relative ease. my LTV ratio is still down around 50%.
people who think like you and poured their money into the market at much higher (you can't prove the levels were high) levels and way over paid for their homes (you can't prove the house is too expensive) are in major problems.
my perspective ha served me exceptionally well and i will continue to ride it until it doesn't - which i expect is likely never, but i'm open to possibilities.
if the crisis happens, i can hunker down for half a decade and weather the storm because I PREPARED. if it doesn't happen, i have plenty of options. i can pay off my current home. i can buy my next home with mostly cash, if not all cash.
when you have something useful to contribute towards making plans now for the future we may face, i'm sure folks would like to hear it.
the truth is, one can make very reasonable conclusions about likely future outcomes once one understands the current trends. i've done it reasonably well for over a decade.
if you just want to repeat the obvious (you can't know the future with 100% certainty, aliens could take over the planet tomorrow and force fiscal discipline - you can't prove this false!) and take no responsibility when those you argue with are proven right, good riddance. |
