Thank god I am still able to laugh at something during this administration—if only occasionally.
And I don't think the people you're talking about would have been political before politics became a bag of memes.
1. The shamelessness absurdity of using "market is up" to deflect from a pedo scandal
2. The fact that the market said "nope" and tanked immediately after Bondi tried to lean on it
At the very least, they could have put the comment in quotes to indicate they're quoting someone and it shouldn't be read at the object level.
I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions:
"Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable retirement, and then draw said money out on a regular basis? What percentage of the population can be supported thus? What is to be said to that percentage whose participation would exceed the capacity of existing financial markets?"
Poor people in the US live like gods compared to people living in 3rd world jungles, but they complain just as much if not more.
So you quickly realize that "comfortable" is a relative term, and envy poisons any honest measure of "comfort".
So the reason you haven’t gotten an answer is because your question doesn’t make much sense.
This is mostly incorrect.
A 401k in the United States is a tax-advantaged investment account. You can buy shares of individual companies, you can purchase index funds, you can leave it there as cash, buy gold, or just about anything you want or you'd expect to be able to purchase using a brokerage account. Depending on the route you take (Roth or Traditional) you can realize tax savings now or at a later point. 401k Accounts are programs offered by your employer as well [1].
One of the many reasons the OP's question doesn't make sense is because not every country in the world has a 401k program.
[1] There are other programs for individual owners or for those who have an employer that does not offer a 401k.
It is a self correcting problem. If the yields are too low people can spend it on hookers and blow before dropping it into a money shredder. The yield shouldn't drop much below the premium for the time preference of money.
I think the more salient question is how many people could the market support if everyone was consuming and not producing.
Not producing as in the goods and services that people want such as clean toilets and food and nursing home care. Or not producing the kids who will go on to produce the aforementioned goods and services.
Any investment alternative, like a private or public pension, works under the same principle. Even traditional retirement plans depended on investing in having lots of kids to take care of you in old age.
There is still an element of real economic growth underlying the stock market, but passive investing, derivatives and market manipulation have largely decoupled the stock market from the actual economy. At least that's my opinion.
I think the answer to your question would be yes IF: * The world economy keeps growing * There is a fair distribution of the return on the world economy (which there isn't)
Perhaps there is issue with shareholder voting, because the funds largely handle that, but generally they are focused on long term growth and stability, and vote accordingly. I mean, then thing you are paying them to do is ensure you have a good retirement fund, if nothing else.
Taxpayer funded DB pensions are a little bit better, since they offer outsized benefits due to being able to hose future taxpayers.
To stick some concrete numbers on this, combined the world's billionaires have about $15 trillion dollars worth of assets. Combined the world's retirement funds have about $60-$70 trillion dollars worth of assets.
What's driving the major disconnect is the generational wealth divide. Boomers have loads of wealth, housing, their pension funds, non-pension investments. Millenials, not so much. (Obviously, this is in part because wealth builds up during one's life, though the divide is stronger than merely that effect)
If you're a boomer, all this politics that promotes the stock market over the material economy is fucking great. Tech lays off another 16 billion people? Stonks go to the moon, and maybe you'll collect a nice fat severance package on your way out of your last job. If you're young though, it's a nightmare.
It's quite recent that the political balance has changed; Biden fumbled the 2024 election in no small part because of his "But the stock market is good, why are you mad?" stance that had been ol' reliable for the decades prior.
Oh wait, they have started 2nd Epstein War to distract from the same list.
Sadly, the nebraska wildfires guarantee that situation isn't getting better anytime soon (and may actually get worse).
Go back another couple months to when Trump took office and the total gains have been ~3.5%. A couple more random missile strikes and it'll go into the negative.
The only people making money in today's market are those with insider info about US economic and military actions (aka Trump and his associates).
There isn't. But everyone knows the US stock market is about run off a cliff. Or rather, it already has.
Everyone is looking at the quarters because they're waiting for Wile E. Coyote to look down.
Be greedy when others are fearful, or something like that?
But I also think Buffet wouldn't characterize the current environment as particularly fearful. We haven't seen a whole lot of panic aside from a couple 1-2% daily swings, which is nothing.
Well there are 3 huge IPOs supposed to go out this year. This hurts liquidity and clogs the pipes.
And then for early stage venture, where I work, it will be harder to raise funds and move new ventures forward. Especially given the extreme shifting of public assets to loyalists.
Overall it’s a bleak time for American exceptionalism. The only companies that are in vogue are AI and Defense. Biotech continues to get hammered because who needs medicine when we can just bomb people with AI right?
This all seems structural, as indicates that in the middle of a war even military stocks are down, which indicates deep rot or deep lack of confidence in at least the stock market.
The problem is when you start molesting the money. That's when the politicians' owners get upset. Those undocumented migrants that have been demonized? They're a massive profit center for employers who underpay them. They're absolutely critical for the agriculture and construction sectors.
Likewise, if you start a war of choice, it does kind of look good for the defense contractors who have to replenish all those weapons you're using but if it crashes the global economy, that's something else. Also, if it erodes American power on the world stage then you're molesting the money. And that's unacceptable.
Part of the reason the Cabinet is filled with incompetent sycophants is to mitigate the risk of being 25A'ed, meaning removed from office via the 25th Amendment.
My prediction is that if a large scale ground invasion happens in Iran and it goes badly, which I think it will, to the tune of tens of thousands of casulaties, the president will be 25A'ed.
At the same time, the trillions thrown away on AI data centers is going to collapse at some point. AI just isn't going to return sufficiently on that kind of investment quickly enough. I can totally see a repeat of the early 2000s when data centers were being sold for scrap for pennies on the dollar.
Oh and as a bonus, the administration is clearly engaging in market manipulation for personal profit. That's also molesting the money. At some point it's going to hurt the integrity of the market and you'll see more and more people sit on the sidelines rather than be robbed blind with no consequences.
So, yes, all of this was painfully obvious. But here we are.
'In the country' being 'in the USA'.
Everybody else outside the boarders of the USA is thinking "how the mighty have fallen".
It is also exactly these same people of the USA whose thinking is going to matter for determining what happens next, not anyone else. It is immaterial what "everyone else outside the borders of the USA" thinks in the context of the country.
Are we as small savers just idiots feeding this idiot machine?
Yes. 401k should never have been the main retirement plan.
So desperate to be valued and liked, that he desperately grabs at anything and everything to get the acclaim that, under normal circumstances, would signify that.
His besetting character flaws foreclose any possibility of attaining the actual approval he seeks.
And so, with his misguided approaches to getting praise and love, the harder he tries the further they are from his reach.
Adding to that tragedy is that a 180-degree U-turn is still within his reach. He could do it today, and probably get some of what he most deeply wants. But I think the most likely outcome is that he'll keep his current trajectory for the rest of his life.
Yes if only he had the heart/insight to make that 180 U-turn. It’d bring him some peace at last.
Like all billionaires, he is an empty void that can never be filled. To borrow a phrase, he is a hungry ghost.
After his first million he needed more, then after a billion he saw that it was not enough, then after becoming president... he is, was, and always will be an empty hole of a person who can never feel satiated and who can consequently never feel genuine happiness.
He is not just a bad person, his is a bad soul.
You can't become one as a person with basic empathy. To do so is a moral failing.
I also don't think changing his behavior is within reach. His narcissism prevents him from growth and, like the scorpion in the tale, he can't help but sting.
My only point was that so much of this suffering, both for himself and others, could be avoided but for his choices and flaws.
Well, you see a black man became president. And what's worse, he was a really good one, articulate, kind, humble, and emodied all the values we cherish. And that broke people so much they would rather burn everything down than build on what he did.
Don't forgot how long Trump and other republicans went on about "birth certificates" during Obama's first term.
It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect.
And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters.
I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats presented someone more appealing earlier in the campaign.
A big reason for Trump's success despite his polarizing nature is the polarizing effects of the platforms of our two parties, which distinguish themselves on "culture war" issues such as abortion, gun rights, immigration, LGBT+ rights, and race relations. There are many Americans who love the MAGA agenda, and there are also many Americans who are not in 100% agreement with MAGA but who'd never vote for a Democrat since they feel that a candidate with the opposite cultural views is anathema. If third parties were more viable in America, the latter group of voters could vote for a candidate that is more to their temperament instead of voting for whomever the GOP nominee is.
Oh please.
Are you seriously comparing the disaster that is Mango Mussolini to the likes of (practically any) alternative candidate?
The sad reality is that the American people wanted Trump and _voted_ for him. TWICE! The rest of the world has come to terms with this and knows there is no going back to the old hegemony (put simply, the American people may vote for another Trump; we now know the USA can no longer be trusted as a good faith partner). The world has changed, and many in the USA who didn't vote for Trump have yet to realise this and still think they can go back.
Besides, if all candidates are crap, you vote for the one that will do least harm. And then look at reforming a political system which leaves voters with such a poor choice.
The people hunger for democracy, not the lesser of two evils.
They surely reform of the two party system (and one where you realistically need to be wealthy to stand a chance of election) is the only solution?
Give people a choice!
I’m so excited for the future where nobody apparently voted for Trump and never backed him, the same way everyone mysteriously didn’t vote for GWB after his fuckups got too big to ignore
But America still likes him. The only thing that's tarnished him is that it costs a little more to drive a gas guzzler
But the decline of the Roman empire took nearly 500 years.
Even the bronze age collapse, which you might say happened fast, took more than 100.
A thought I have every time someone parrots this is, "what is reasonable to expect?".
Would you have heard people saying the same thing during the civil war?
During the gilded age?
After the stock market crash?
During the 1970s oil crisis or the severe increase in violent crime during the 1970s and 80s?
Spain was an actual dictatorship in recent memory, and now you'll hear Americans fantasizing about fleeing there.
Should we not expect an empire to have ups and downs?
Maybe folks would be more careful of their money or the economy if there were more oral traditions along those lines --- one of my wife's aunts just passed away, a child of the Depression, her home was filled with home goods and food stuffs purchased when on sale beyond any reasonable expectation of her individual use, but all perfectly organized and ready to prevent future need.
One thing that worries me about the current state of things is scale and speed. Modern technology, markets, communication systems and supply chains make it possible for things to go catastrophically wrong very quickly for a massive number of people.
I think this is somewhat unique to the current era.
I still don’t buy into the belief that we’re absolutely witnessing a collapse. Studying history shows that things have been far worse (politically, socially geopolitically, etc) and we’ve come out the other side numerous times.
So I think “ups and downs” is probably the right way to look at this. I do worry about the impact of modern technology on this equation.
The Roman Empire took 500 years to decline.
The Soviet Union took 2 years.
The US broke centuries old alliances and upended the global order in a matter of months.
If there is a collapse of the American empire it won’t happen over centuries but in the span of a few tweets.
People don't like hearing it, but Europe lives on American Tech, powered by American energy, and defended by American defense. There other lifelines being Russian energy and Chinese tech. It's a "pick your poison" situation.
Europe should be able to stand on it's own, but it's going to take much more than 4 years to do it, and Europe will be a different society than it is now after the shift.
I used to believe the unwinding of the Petrodollar would take a generation, it's now likely to happen this year.
Trump's wild late night rants threatening civilian infrastructure gave all the cover Iran needed to take out the infrastructure of any of our allies that have US connections or bases. The effects of those attacks on infrastructure already completed will take years, if not decades to repair.
The US, like Russia before it, has shown itself to be a paper tiger.
We need to get the Epstein class out of government at all levels, deal with the consequences of the return to hard currency, and rebuild what we can of our nation.
Why do you think the specific regime change targets of Venezuela then Iran, and the oil blockade of Cuba? Look at the volume of oil and natural gas from Venezuela and Iran. Look at how much is imported to Cuba. Now, look at what currencies they were using or trying to use instead of the US dollar.
Now, also, look at the extraction and refining capacity in the Middle East that has been destroyed or badly damaged in the past month. Different oil fields produce different types and grades of crude. The US mostly produces sweet light and sweet intermediate crude on land. The US gulf coast has a big refining capacity for sour heavy crude, which is the main exported kind from both Venezuela and Iran. The US right now after all the attacks on Iran and by Iran on US-friendly countries (along with Ukraine damaging capacity in Russia as part of their war) has a huge advantage in LNG production and in refining the very type of oil from Iran and Venezuela.
Put that all together and it looks like rather than only distracting from pedophilia (which is one motive for all sorts of things the administration does) and trying to culturally and ethnically purge the United States that there just might be another reason for all of these things happening within about a quarter. It could be assumed that the guy who said we were going to have a US as the energy leader of the world and who brags about all the access US companies can now have to Venezuelan oil might be trying to prop up the petrodollar through expeditionary warfare.
If Oil goes the USD follow suits thanks to Petrodollar. This will happen until it's still easier to trade oil in dollars.
It's been trending upward since 2025.
So I have no idea what metric you're using but no, this is objectively not the case.
Had you bought $1000 of S&P on Jan 1st 2025 you'd have $1070
Had you bought $1000 of EUR on the same day and put it under the bed, you'd have $1100
Iran's power structure is unchanged. Oil is more expensive than in a long time. American alliances are fraying. Iran now exerts control over the Strait of Hormuz.
All this has done is to expose the limits of hard power, America's biggest asset.
So it seems more like there is a splintered regime of autonomous cells all kinda doing what they think they should be doing. Whatever general controls the revolutionary guard around the strait could defect tomorrow and sell out to the US, becoming president of his own little carved out country without anyone to really stop him. We known Trump would be falling over himself to make that deal right now.
JCPOA was negotiated under the leadership of the EU, all Trump has done is shown that the EU's soft power is more effective than American hard power.
Trump is the biggest environmentalist terrorist on the planet. Blow up a few schools and cause the world to double down on cutting out their oil usage.
It would be hilarious if people weren't dying.
Okay, I'll assume you're serious about it. If so, the only real way you can contribute this is by 1. Voting for anyone running on this platform at any chance you get, no matter their likelihood of winning 2. _Never_ voting for anyone _not_ running on this.
This won’t be achieved without extreme violence. These people are entrenched in some of the most powerful positions in our globalized world.
These people are killing tens of thousands of people to gain personal wealth and to cover their existing crimes. Maybe millions, if they aren't stopped.
Buy puts, wait for Trump to say something dumb (don't worry, it won't take long), sell, return to step one.