In my first Bear Market Blog, I talked about how society's mood causes events. Since 1982, there have been 81 mass shootings, including the most recent one in Orlando. 55 of them have occurred since 1999 (Mother Jones). So the last 16 years created 68 percent of these negative events. This of course doesn't include acts of terrorism including 9/11and the Boston Marathon. These phenomena are occurring worldwide including Paris, Baghdad, Moscow, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, the list goes on (Johnson's Archive).
Congress is at a standstill and has been quite some time. We have recently been in 2 major wars and a 3rd un-proclaimed war against ISIS.
The economy lags with a growth rate close to zero. Although "official" unemployment rate is 5+ percent, many, many jobs are either part-time or are filled by overqualified workers.
I'm not telling you anything you don't know. And I'm not trying to bum you out. This is just where we're at in the scheme of things right now. The question is how does all this affect you? What can you personally do to live a happy life despite what is occurring in the world. What financial decisions should you make?
These are all good questions that I plan to answer in my blog. First of all I firmly believe that the current stock market will "catch up" to the "real" stock market, that is, the one based on the price of gold.
If we look at other stock markets around the world:
Japan:
Italy:
Spain:
China:
You can imagine what the Greek stock market looks like! The list goes on and on. Our stock market is basically the only one that has recovered from the debacle of 2008. The reason? The U.S. government dumped 1.2 TRILLION dollars into the monetary system (by the Fed) and the primary place it went was into the stock market. Now that the monetary machine has finished its printing, the U.S. stock market is in its last throws. Now I'm not predicting that it is going to start down tomorrow or even this year. The Dow might even make a brief new high. But it WILL catch up to the other stock markets. And when it does, look out below! So this is my warning: unless you are comfortable gambling with your nest egg, I suggest you put it in a safer place. I'll discuss where that might be in an upcoming blog.
So what is the secret to "happiness" during a downturn in social mood? Although each one of us adds our little bit to the whole, one gift we all have is that we are individuals and we don't have to "follow the herd". That is, we have common sense and the ability to make up our own minds. Sometimes it is difficult "going against the herd", but within reason we are our own selves. We also luckily live in a country that is struggling less than the rest of the world. We can count our blessings for that.
As I said this is cyclic in nature and we as a global society will eventually get in a better mood. How long will it take? I don't know. It will be quite a while longer according to my sources. In the meantime, we need to protect ourselves and our loved ones and stay away from conflict. Try to be positive in your own life and not "follow the crowd". We also need to protect our assets; our home, our finances, our nest egg from deteriorating. I'll discuss this more specifically soon.
In the meantime, bear with me as I lay out my story. I need to give it all to you in bites. Remember how to eat an elephant. There's a lot to eat!
Best regards,
Ken Knight
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