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To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (89508)

2/5/2017 1:32:51 AM

From: John Pitera

3 Recommendations

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GROUND ZERO™
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Sweet Ol

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 218589

Hi GZ, a post on the state of the US consumer

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (18704)

2/5/2017 1:00:55 AM

From: John P

of 18705

Hi Jon, you make and excellent point that I a want to amply and expand on. I have seen a few very smart, successful people on Silicon Investor and in the financial media who have been making the case this year that the % of American's who are directly invested in the stockmarket is at a 20 or 30 year low..... in some cases longer.

It has been used as a sentiment gauge to say that the US equity indices have much higher levels to go to before the Percentage of people in the US gets high enough for there to be a significant top in the stock market.

That line of thinking is a fallacy in my mind;and I have several market analysts who agree with me.

A very large percentage of the USA is living paycheck to paycheck, and the WSJ had an article in the past 2 weeks that highlighted the percentage of the population in the US that did not have even an extra thousand or $1500 in savings in the event of an unexpected emergency expense.

Let alone have money to open a brokerage account. The new GIG economy , where many millennials have 2, 3 or 4 piecemeal jobs that they do on a GIG basis, the way a musician will have a one night or one week gig at a club or venue.... those jobs have no 401, pensions or savings as a perk to them.

And that percentage is continuously rising..... that's why there is so much anger in the country and the world at large. I posted a graph where youth unemployment in Italy is 40%! in major cities in Italy it's been 33% + for the past 15 to 20 years.

As the middle class has been hollowed out... it is created a destabilized country and world.

When President Trump gave his first 1 hour interview on ABC on Wednesday January 25 that 10 PM ET, he was asked if his vetting of people coming into the US from the 7 mid east countries with the highest ISIS profile was going to make people a little angrier. Trump responded, (I believe unerringly accurately) that the world was a VERY ANGRY place right now. His initiative would not move the needle compared to the Anger that is out there both domestically and globally.

So as usual, you have very solid and logic based elucidation occurring in your post.

and to a few of my good friends on SI who have been living in some of the prosperity bubbles that are out there just be aware that the Baby Boomers are in the massive draw down phase of their life trajectory and I know so many doctors, lawyers, various professionals that are in their late 60's and 70's and are still working because the .com collapse of 2000-2002 hit them, and then the Great Financial Crises of 2008-2009 really messed with what money they had calculated out for retirement.

The 100 year war cycle should have the US in a significant global conflict within 4 to 6 months. ( after all WWI started in 1914 and the US did not enter until April 6th,1917.

Janet Yellen is going to have the hardest ride of her life when she does her annual testimony to Congress this month, and POTUS has been invited by speaker of the House Ryan to address a joint session of Congress on February 28th..... just at the time of some pretty incendiary astro alignments.

In one respect, that will be refreshing in that it will give these fascist protesters at Berkeley , adorned in their all black terror combat suit and masks and the Black lives matters and the sarah silverstone's and Madonna's who want to have military coups and blow up the white house... they shall become the fringe pariahs and a 58 year old has been like Madonna and a 3rd rate comedian, .... There little squeals of empowerment shall be subsumed and dragged down underground as tectonic plates are when subsumed when new mountains are made and the cycle of change moves forward.

JJP

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To: Elroy who wrote (18706)	2/5/2017 1:30:49 AM
From: John P	of 18707

Hi Elroy, you are spot on with these observations My hunch is the rise of discount brokers in the 1970's and then online brokerage in the dotcom bubble pushed loads of individuals directly into the market. Then, loads of them got burned in the two debacles (dotcom in '00 and housing in '08), and so we're probably now at a fairly stable number for percent directly invested in the market. I doubt the amount of cash held by individuals/families that are not directly invested in the stock market isn't too much. Just my guess. Even if a million new investors join, they probably bring an insignificant amount of money per family to move the market around much. That's my guess. In the 1980's and in the 1990's you had a smaller % of the american population that was living paycheck to paycheck.... say the bottom 30 % has been consistent, but the 40 - 50% above the bottom 30% at the bottom are not as financially as well off as the the 1980's and 1990's. and that situation did not really deteriorate until the GFC in 2008-2009.. that is what I have both been told by actuaries and is also in line with the fairly voluminous anecdotal work done by about 8 people I know and respect..... As we know the very top 1 to 3% are doing better than anytime since the robber barrons days of the 1870's into the 1920's..... when the wealthy needed to wize up with the creation of foundations, trusts, offshore asset deployments and other tax effectiveness planning. John