@lucieshelly I understand and wish to welcome you. I believe we are going to be okay, less rich, but really truly okay. The outcome of the next election is important to how soon we can recover from all of it which is probably why there is so much interest in the politics.
We've been heading towards a cliff for 50 years, but we can slow it down and turn it around with the right leadership. There is still oodles of hope but now it comes with pain and hard work. Hard work is actually good.
Welcome! Like you, I sure think about my financial situation and how best to prepare for the coming year. For a while now, I've been out of the market and just watching and waiting. I do feel that the market is in a bubble and like Jeanne, feel that it has been manipulated for several years now. It's irrational. In meditation, I did see the market fall a second time, maybe late summer? I'm not alway good on dates, but that's my gut feeling and I think it will coincide with Wall Street coming to terms with the reality of a second wave. @Laura-f wrote about our country's patchwork strategy in dealing with the pandemic and yes, the patchwork response does not work. So, with a second wave, the country will have to grapple with a new reality: how to finally slowdown the pandemic.
Sometimes I wonder now if there will be a noticeable lull between the first wave and the second. It's pretty much a hot mess.
Jeanne's advice is the best. Save money and pay off debt. Both those strategies will make you more secure in uncertain times. We are absolutely going to get through this. Follow your own gut instincts, too, because that's your own intuition guiding you. We all have that inner guidance and just need to recognize it.
I'm glad you've joined us. Namaste.
Thank you, @bluebelle. I love your words.
Ooo - St. Joseph is very pretty. I have never been, but know people vacation over there. Anything on the lake will be beautiful, but lake-effect snow will definitely be a challenge. Don’t forget - a Detroit (3 hours away) is right across the river from Windsor Canada. And there is also a border crossing at Port Huron. ;)
This morning, a highly placed market analyst said what I've been saying for years, although he said it far better and he's far more qualified to say it:
“The stock market and the economy have parted ways,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “I’m not sure what will trigger a sustained sell-off in stocks, but surging [virus] infections and another round of more business closures will be difficult for investors to ignore much longer.”
I read his remarks in an opinion piece by Robert Samuelson that criticized The Washington Post for reporting on the stock market as if it is an indicator of the U.S. economy, when it is not.
For many years and more so in the Trump years, the stock market does not reflect the economic well-being of workers and the population. It reflects the prices of stocks that are in turn manipulated by the Administration to make it look like the economy is doing well.
Trump is desperate to keep the stores and schools open for just that reason - so people will buy stuff and the markets won't crash and then he and the Senate won 't lose the elections. They know that a real economic crash will cost them the election.
This paragraph stands out: Just last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — a group of 36 countries — issued its forecast for the United States through 2021. It is unlikely to inspire much cheering. Acknowledging that much depends on the severity of the coronavirus, the OECD report constructs two scenarios: one that might be termed “pessimistic” and a second that is “more pessimistic.”
The economy is never going to be great. He and his republicans cronies are opening too fast and now schools. The only thing that they are achieving is making more people sick and having to close down business again. That is why he is trying to discredit Fauci and the CDC
Welcome to this lovely forum Lucieshelly! I see that Jeanne and others answered your question about the economy. I can tell you one thing: I do see a resurgence of the virus, mostly because of the mishandling by tRump & many in the GOP states who are suffering right now. If those states had not shirked the virus as a hoax and shut down when NY, Cali, CT, NJ, etc. all did - the entire country - for 3 weeks, I felt it would have popped up in places then left, and that a treatment would have been available for the cases that did arise in Wintertime. The vaccine won't be here till next year (one that is truly helpful anyway, not a "first try").
Unfortunately, I feel the economy is and will continue to suffer. However, I feel we will get through it. As Jeanne has stated, just without so much "stuff" as before. People will live more simply. Travel will be the biggest change, folks will not take as many vacations etc. Bars will not be doing well for a while either. It will be a while till there is a new "normal" but until we realize we must change the environment along with that new normal, the earth will continue to slap us around since time is not on our side. The environment and the earth will also change. My feeling is when you see governments, people first, all working to help the planet, the economy will also start to thrive in very new ways.
Take heart, change is difficult but necessary. Sending love and light will help us all :) ? ?
My husband and I are having intermittent conversations on where we'd go if we have to leave California because we couldn't afford to stay. Somewhere cold and isolated... but not Canada (LOL I totally would, but he's opposed to emigrating and it would have to be up to him to get work there).
I think it's been said on here before that the great lakes could be a soft landing spot if climate change becomes more apparent towards 2030 as it's a good freshwater resource.
During a reading in 2013, I saw the Great Lakes as a mecca in the future. I posted it here in a few different places.Then I later discovered they are the largest body of fresh water in the world.
I think I mentioned it, but we have close friends who moved from NYC area to St. Joseph MI, right on the lake. Their kids are also grown and I have no doubts that if we were in dire need, they would take us in or help us get set up in their community (the wife is from that area and in the past when they were in need we helped them). The issue for right now is that it's still solid Drumpf country, our friends were more hopeful things would be changing by now (they moved there in 2018), but so far they report it's getting worse.
We are in the liberal bubble that is Ann Arbor, but most of the rest of Michigan is like you said - solid T country, unfortunately.