Here's a heartwarming song about a girl who just wants to have fun, who dumps her boyfriend because she found a guy with more money. Cyndi Lauper, in classic 1980's New Wave/punk style, telling you the truth. Money changes everything.
Money can't buy you happiness. But poverty isn't the key to happiness either. Like it or not, whatever financial situation you were born into, a certain amount of money is necessary to live in today's world. Unless you want to live in the woods, in a homemade cabin, and grow, scavenge, or hunt all your food and supplies, and avoid all other people, you need money to line in today's world. The level of money needed to pay for the necessities of everyday life varies widely from person to person.
The irony of this blog is that I'm a guy who is currently homeless, yet I've spent much of my 58 years on this planet trying to understand how money works. On one hand, I've been struggling to earn a decent living since working as a taxi driver several years ago. I haven't been able to find a "real job" in the years since. At the same time, I see all kinds of amazing investment opportunities happening in the world these days, because of my 30+ years of watching financial markets, reading 200 or 300 books, and studying long term social and economic trends.
For at least 5 1/2 years, I've been blogging about a major economic crisis, potentially an actual great depression, that I believed was coming, starting around 2020. Ultra long term trends that I had been watching for more than 25 years pointed to a major economic downturn, and a lot of social turbulence and change in the 2020's. I hinted at these ideas in this post from January 2, 2018, and many times since. What I dramatically underestimated was The Fed and the U.S. government's resolve to prop up the U.S. economy, and keep the "next recession" from happening, after 2009.
On average, economic recessions happen every 4 to 7 years in the United States. Yet we haven't had a full recession since the Great Recession (aka Global Financial Crisis or GFC) of 2007-2009. With an unprecedented amount of fiscal and economic manipulation, we are now in year 15 of the usual 4 to 7 year cycle. That's not good. We're due for one hell of an economic downturn.
Yes, we did go into a major recession in early 2020, technically a short and deep depression, supposedly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In reality, the pandemic amplified economic issues that were already happening, and made the whole situation much worse. But the economic response to the pandemic was so big, around $6 trillion in newly created money added to the U.S. economy, that the recession that started in February of 2020 was stopped dead in its tracks. The total U.S. money supply went up about 25%, which had never happened so quickly before. Suddenly money was everywhere, and nearly all of us became Stimulus Ballers, at least for a while, with extra money to spend on all kinds of stupid shit.
But now that money has drained out of the hands of everyday people, and that huge influx of money led to high inflation, higher prices on everyday items. That money also flowed into soaring asset prices, in stocks, crypto, homes in many pandemic boomtowns, and many other things.
But now, as I write this on August 7th, 2024, it appears that the recession is not only back, but the stock market has finally figured this out. Officially, we've probably been back in a recession since October or November of 2023. But the early stages of recession usually happen without most people even noticing. Many months into a recession, the unemployment rate starts to really go up, and stocks start to go down. It looks like we're finally at the point now, where the recession that tried to start in 2020 will finally play out, whether we want it to or not. Japan is in recession. Parts of Europe are in recession. China's enormous housing market is imploding, they're heading into serious economic problems and are slowing down. There doesn't seem to be any major part of the world economy that can surge at this point, and pull the rest of us out of recession.
That's bad news for most people. In recessions, major companies lay people off. Household incomes drop for many. The debts most people have racked up for student loans, homes, fancy cars, big trucks, and anything bought with credit cards, those debts turn quickly into anchors dragging people down. In recessions and depressions, most people struggle.
But these are also the times that many of the greatest opportunities come along to invest in all kinds of things, from Star Wars collectibles to stocks, to crypto, to houses. For more than five years now, I've been sharing ideas about this huge economic crisis I believed was coming, hoping that some people would check out these ideas, and not lose their retirement savings when the crisis hits. Over these years of blogging about what I call The Phoenix Great Depression, this oncoming economic crisis, I realized one thing. Most people don't give a flying fuck about a coming economic crisis. They just want to keep their daily lives going as the Titanic hits the iceberg and starts to sink. Let the band play on. Most people don't care until it's way too late. I'm one of the very few people who look ahead for these kinds of things. I knew I was an economic and futurist geek, but I'm far more weird than I thought. So I'm struggling to make a decent living again, while seeing this crazy scenario heading our way, that no one wants to hear about.
So in this blog, I'm not going to pontificate on this economic crisis, why I believe it's happening, or how it will play out. I'm just going to simply look at what I think are good, long term, buying opportunities for various investments and anything else that looks like a good deal. Short, sweet posts.
These are my ideas, based on everything I've learned about money, the markets, and economic trends, since I bought my first ounce of silver for $11, way back in 1980. Don't invest in anything because I think it's a good idea. If any of these ideas make some sense to you, do your own research, do your due diligence, consult any professionals you think might help, and then make your decision to invest or not. The next post will be a disclaimer, which will be linked to in future posts. Read it.
This blog is simply to point out things I think are a good deal to buy and hold for an extended period of time. I hope this may help some people find some ways to improve their lives in the future, in the ways that money can help. Money can't buy you happiness. But being broke or in debt isn't a good place to find happiness either.
I don't plan to monetize this blog in any way. There will be no affiliate links and no ads. I'm working on earning money with my writing and art in other ways. I don't plan to make a dime off of this blog. I'm putting these ideas about opportunities because I can make some pretty solid calls on a continuing basis, just to prove it's possible. Time will tell how they play out.
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