Living under Trump 2

[hail2skins]

Sisko, how old are you and your wife? How many years until retirement?

Be curious as to what you come up as far as percentage of stock allocation in your portfolio.

[Corcaigh]

As someone who is a few years into retirement I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

Heavy in cash can mean you get hammered if inflation kicks off again. Likewise if rates go back up bond funds will take a beating in their value, but will eventually compensate with higher dividends. Typically equities provide the best coverage against inflation, but eventually a bear market will come and if you need to sell them when they decline in value it will hurt.

Personally, I have a few years expenses in cash. No debt, so not sensitive to costs if interest rates go up. If investments do drop in value I’m not in a position where I need to sell any to cover living expenses. Investments are split 65 equities/35 bond funds. I’m not worried about rising interest rates impacting bond fund values as I have a long horizon to hold them and will be happy living off dividends and cash while they recover.

[Corcaigh]

On the topic of H1-B not surprisingly Musk and his MAGA opponents are both right and wrong.

H1-B visas do provide a recruitment mechanism for new engineering talent, me included , but it historically has been badly abused by Indian IT outsourcing shops and consulting firms who are hired by American firms looking to replace American workers with offshoring or cheaper temporary foreign labor.

About half the firms on this list are about cost reduction and worker displacement, not engineering innovation.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk- ... echnology/

OMG, who would have thought that a couple of mega wealthy tech bros would come out in favor of a misused policy that will help them add on to their Scrooge McDuck pile of megabucks?

The tech bros are pleased that the pool of international tech talent is available to them, and don’t give a shit about relatively costly American IT staff working at banks being kicked to the dumpster and replaced by an indentured servant from Mumbai trapped on a temporary work visa with no employment mobility.

The MAGAs don’t understand innovation and don’t want foreigners coming here unless they are from Northern Europe.

[Renegade7]

Read an article that Dems need to get back to basics...it's the economy, stupid.

Trump gets this, that's why he won twice.

Stop trying to prevent peoples feelings getting hurt, Dems lost the culture wars badly, come back to earth, please.

In the meantime...I'm enjoying MAGA 2.0 imploding before it even starts. He lied to you? No fucking way

[ixcuincle]

I don't know if that guy who wrote out a defensive reply on why Merrick Garland should have taken that long to prosecute Trump (TheGreatBuzz IIRC) will ever find these boards but if he ever does let it be known that Biden and by proxy Garland not nipping MAGA in the bud is a major reason why they were able to rebound and win this election.

Take a thought about that as we mark another anniversary of the Capitol riot on 1/6.

[The Sisko]

As someone who is a few years into retirement I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

This is my problem. The usual answer is what you said regarding asset allocation. That's mostly how we've handled prior downturns. However, the economic and systemic threats posed by Tя☭mp 2.0 are unique and we don't feel comfortable using past experience for that reason. We haven't gone 100% to cash, we're at about 65% and yes, the inflation risk scares me with that position, but we'll be looking to our financial advisor to help us do some contingency planning.
@hail2skins We're 58 and were hoping to retire a bit early, say by 62 or so. However, we both have stressful, demanding jobs and are just like "Is this shit still really worth it?" My wife has some options that will mature in a couple of years and I need another three years to get my ten in with my employer. So, if things start looking like a banana Weimar republic, well, more than they already are, we'll be content to un-ass the A.O. to our bugout country. We'd leave a decent chunk of change on the table, but we're both pretty nervous about everything that might go down.

Maybe it's age now, but we're not typically prone to flipping out at every crisis, but again, this feels different. Between all the BS he's spewed about tariffs, deportations, Oban-izing the courts/elections, closing government agencies, or at least taking a major axe to the budget, I could see another depression happening.

[PeterMP]

As someone who is a few years into retirement I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

This is my problem. The usual answer is what you said regarding asset allocation. That's mostly how we've handled prior downturns. However, the economic and systemic threats posed by Tя☭mp 2.0 are unique and we don't feel comfortable using past experience for that reason. We haven't gone 100% to cash, we're at about 65% and yes, the inflation risk scares me with that position, but we'll be looking to our financial advisor to help us do some contingency planning.
@hail2skins We're 58 and were hoping to retire a bit early, say by 62 or so. However, we both have stressful, demanding jobs and are just like "Is this shit still really worth it?" My wife has some options that will mature in a couple of years and I need another three years to get my ten in with my employer. So, if things start looking like a banana Weimar republic, well, more than they already are, we'll be content to un-ass the A.O. to our bugout country. We'd leave a decent chunk of change on the table, but we're both pretty nervous about everything that might go down.

Maybe it's age now, but we're not typically prone to flipping out at every crisis, but again, this feels different. Between all the BS he's spewed about tariffs, deportations, Oban-izing the courts/elections, closing government agencies, or at least taking a major axe to the budget, I could see another depression happening.

I think it is pretty unlikely Trump/the federal government will allow a pretty major drop in the stock indexes unless things completely break down (and then holding cash isn't going to do you any good).

For 2008, the time to get back to the same total return (i.e. you invested 10K to get back to 10K from the min) for the S&P 500 was just about 3 years. The DJIA was just over 5 years.

Going back to the dot com bubble, the time to get back to the same total return for the S&P 500 was just about 6 years. The DJIA was just about 4 years.

With Covid those numbers are months.

The longest period of time is probably from the Great Depression which was 16 years.

[hail2skins]

Great to have PeterMP on here too

[Corcaigh]

If you have enough then you can afford to take less risk. But a mix of cash for the short term to ride out any storms and then bonds and equities, domestic and international, to provide future growth and money on the time horizon that you want it.

Just don’t let your advisor sell you annuities or shit you don’t need with high fees.

And before you commit to anything, you can post your portfolio questions at www.Bogleheads.org and get excellent feedback.

[hail2skins]

All us ESers were scattered about on Election Night, but lets face it, today is the real depressing day. He got away with it:

https://www.mercedsunstar.com/opinion/u ... 51283.html