@michele-b-here-in-the-forum --
You are such a beautiful soul. Thank you for your kind and hopeful message. I'm depressed right now for myriad reasons, and will allow your words to permeate my heart.
You’ve been in my thoughts this past week and I’m happy that you posted. I pray that your loving kindness comes back to you tenfold.
❤️
Love to you Deetoo ?
Still rowing, towing, helping and healing with all my power and might and ever thankful and blessed by all of the helpers both seen and unseen and the spiritual multitudes that surround us.
Bless you for your generosity of love and spirit. You lift me up today and everyday dear heart. You are here for a reason no matter how challenging our lives are.
?⚡?⚡?
Speaking of mortgage rates and the housing market's chances of getting stimulated right now, I noticed there is a European bank that is offering negative mortgages, in other words, investors are so nervous about the global economy that they are paying people to borrow their money. People can buy a house and pay back less than they borrowed. In my lifetime, I have never heard of that. It would be nice if it could keep the housing market strong in the U.S..
And speaking of how the Republicans have contributed to slowing down the economy, I don't know how big the impact of the 2018 tax "reform" will be on hurting our economy, but they did scale back the amount that Americans can deduct for mortgage interest. That deduction, although still partially in place, was originally passed decades ago to stimulate the economy by encouraging people to buy homes. Because when people buy a home, they spend a lot on American goods. Along with other economically damaging policies the Republicans passed, their tax bill is one of them.
As for how America will fair if this recession really happens as predicted, it is the reset that I have felt will knock the extreme Right down and bring us back into balance.
I believe we will all be okay through it. Perhaps another meditation night is in order for us to fortify ourselves and send healing to others.
I hear you on the mortgage for student loan debt. My concern is what sector, government or private, should I be in for work. I started preparing for this downturn, based on predictions on this site in 2018. So I feel ok if we hit a downturn b/c I have prepared for it.
Well, if you have student loans with the Federal Government, they offer a Public Forgiveness Loan Program, if you work in certain non-profits. That's the only way I'll see the light of day with mine. Of course, I know my ultimate source is God, so in that sense, there are infinite possibilities.
Unfortunately, private loans (such as those from banks, etc...) are not eligible.
What sucks for me...is that I got grants for college; but because I couldn't get healthcare, I had to take loans out for medications, doctors visits, surgeries...Plus, I had to work fulltime when I did get healthcare, so I wasn't able to get assistantships. It was like the perfect storm. So I had to borrow $89,000. But the government charges me 5%, so I've accumulated $17,000 in interest alone.
I feel hopeless about it...but I know I, along with all of us here, are light-beings and light-workers...and because of that, we won't be left behind. I already live paycheck-to-paycheck working a fulltime job with a part-time job, with occasional odd jobs, like pet-sitting, etc...And I live pretty minimalist...I don't buy things...my only splurge is food because it's like my only joy (but that's for another forum). And I ain't even talking about eating out. I'm talking about frozen gluten-free pizzas, etc...
So for me personally, I don't have to cut back on spending so much, as I don't already spend that much. I may have to cut back on my retirement savings, however. I save about 10%. But that may be too much.
And for the holidays, I usually get my mom something small, and send others cards or make small monetary donations to charities or libraries. It helps restrain spending when you don't like other people.
It really hurt that I had to pay in $976 for that Republican tax cut; but, it comforts me to know the uber-wealthy can buy that extra yacht. At least I can sleep at night.
Plus, being the first in my family to go college and get a Master's degree...that helps me too...
Yesterday, the 2 year bond yield rate was higher than the 10 year bond yield rate. Typically, the 10 year has a higher rate, as an enticement to keep people's money tied up longer. As people buy bonds, the bond price goes up and the yield goes down. Thus, since the 10 year yield is down, it is because people are buying the 10 year bonds. Investors buy the 10 year bonds during times of uncertainty and when they fear the economy will slow down or go into recession.
Investors pull money out of equities (stocks) to invest in bonds. Thus the stock market will go down as money flows into bonds. What Wall Street is fearful of is a "panic" where investors start selling stocks en masse, which would cause severe market swings and remove confidence in the market (and confidence in money hidden in your mattress mentality).
Trump has no clue what he is doing (well, other than the potential manipulation of market or stock swings based on his tweets (remember how Boeing's Stock did when Trump said he was going to cancel the purchase of a new Air Force One....that seemed like a test <if his tweets impacting a stock price> and he's done it a lot since).
Reduce your debts, keep to a budget, put off luxuries or extravagencies to build up a money base, in case you lose your job or suffer other forms of financial setbacks. Live simply for awhile, you might find you like it better and life is less stressful......and we all could use less stress.......especially with the Drama Queen in Chief in power.
Mine are with the Fed government and yes they offer a lot of repayment options. I have always lived minimally I just had a lot of medical debt. Got that taken care of. ? it does seem like life as it is is unsustainable. Something has to give and that seems to be the economy.
2008 never went away. We never had a boom after the last crash in the UK, i'm not sure how things were in the USA?
I've often thought the stock market is over valued. you can buy a share in Google for $1,165 and you get back something that's worth 0.00000028713849263776906% of the company. That's pretty much zero. it's only worth is that one day maybe in the future hopefully you can sell it to someone else for more. It really is the emperors new clothes.
Baby boomers are retiring and therefore not spending as much, millennials are coming in at the other end but they aren't interested in 'stuff' as much as previous generations and their work is less secure and often underpaid.
The Fed can't cut rates fast enough to keep up with Trumps tweets.
I keep wondering what the best way is to plan for the future. Like I said, I am saving 10% each pay in my 403B plan at work, about 95% of which is in stocks.
I hate to say that my faith in God or the Universe is part of my retirement plan, but it's true. But how many people had that same faith during the Great Depression?
I keep thinking about what else I can do or get rid of to live as simply at possible.
It depends on how old you are and how much time you have to ride out the market fluctuations. If you aren't planning on retiring in the next 10-15 years, you should be ok to "ride it out" because the economy will likely recover in that time frame.
That being said, you can move some portion of your money to safer, less equity intense choices to reduce "the hurt" if/when the market dives (called timing the market). I mostly got out in Feb 2018 and have been in a lot of bonds. I didn't suffer through the volatility of 2018. I also missed out on the last 15% rise in the market we saw this year, so there is that. Hopefully, with the run towards bonds, my bond funds will do well and I'll make up the difference I've missed the last several months.
I will be back in the market, and heavily into equities, once the decline occurs and it looks like the market settles down a bit. There were a lot of fluctuations in 2008, but the market eventually settled down. The timing is a hard thing to do, because you never really know where the "bottom" is (just like we don't really know where the "top" is). But, so long as I'm close to the bottom, that is good enough. I got out a touch early this time around, but I would have been a wreck in 2018 with all the wild swings in valuations.