Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

yeah, my mom was a chinese restaurant waitress her entire life (except one brief stint shipping out guns and I have no clue what that was about) so she was always very on top of me saving money and never owing money to anyone (credit cards, mortgages etc.) she dealt with all the money in our house.

when I see "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" quoted, I kinda just smh because "Rich Dad" was, in fact, my mother.

Not really sure if this is relevant, but I'm a cis white het dude who grew up in a family that never had much money. I don't feel conflicted about owning stocks in general. Maybe there are certain companies that might make me a bit uneasy (like, I don't know, gun manufacturers or something), but not enough to keep me from buying a broad index. I think most corporations are, on average, not evil, but maybe that's an unpopular view.

(except one brief stint shipping out guns and I have no clue what that was about)

Probably the greatest parenthetical aside on a mother ever.

i am an socialist and i do stocks, not a lot. 401k, IRA, and index funds. i don't believe in ethical investing. i think it's all unethical. but you can't not play this game, even if you live in a shack somewhere. imo. i don't buy that it would be more socially responsible to save all cash, or not save at all. the latter just puts you in an even more precarious position so you have to sell your labor more cheaply or be abused more. i am more and more frugal as i get older and constantly cranking up my savings rate.

I am a brown person married to a brown person raised by cis het WASP middle class parents and I went broke and (if not homeless) was forced to become involuntarily nomadic during the ‘08 crisis. EBT and heating assistance and no insurance and the unemployment office, all of it. Part of the reason I went broke is my own choices (grad school!), and part of it is broader economics, and part of it is that I actually didn’t understand money. Since ‘08 I’ve learned consistently about budgeting, discipline, and how to be responsible. But I’ll never be able to own stocks, and my ability to have a dog/family/two cars is very circumscribed by finances, and it basically always shocks me how cavalier people are with their money, who then describe themselves as “just making due.”

I like that post soda

xpost
Thanks for saying that, Yerac. Been lurking and rarely posting since 2004(!?), with frequent blackout periods and various usernames because I forget what they are after not logging in for a year. I have inconsistent internet habits.

A lot of these responses have me mulling some things about myself that have never occurred to me. I was a deadbeat broke-as-heck band dude for my 20's and first half of my 30's, and I figured the punk thing is just in my bones forever. I never thought I had money issues (as in, weird feelings towards money), but maybe I do? And maybe it's a white male guilt thing? I do feel horrible being at work and knowing I make more money than people older than me, or people that aren't white males. I feel bordering-on-physical pain if someone bagging my groceries is anywhere approaching my age. I guess I always felt like the cockroach in the corner and now I'm far from that and it feels gross. I'll ask some social distance real life friends if they feel the same way. No one I know in real life talks about money ever. Some friends are partners at big law firms. Some friends are middle school teachers. No one talks about it.

Soda - I am sorry to hear you had to go through that. I grew up middle class but my parents never really bought me much (no Nintendo/car/computer/etc), so maybe that had an effect on me not really wanting to buy things as an adult and being fine existing on very little income. I moved around every couple years and was latchkey so very independent too. I always felt willfully broke, and in a fucked-up twist, by electing to trade in my grad school or law school or legit-career-building years for touring the world in bands, I don't have any real debt, and never have - just never had any savings either. We briefly had some savings once but then immediately blew out all on moving cross-country and buying a house. I guess I'm still sorta broke but I own a house in a city I certainly don't feel broke at all!

Just was curious about the ethics of stock trading. Not that I have any extra money whatsoever.

Couple other thoughts (brain is being stoked by all these responses):

1/ Thought experiment: could it possibly be the most ethical path to spend all the money you don't need on... like... small businesses? Like, buying a synthesizer direct from a boutique company for $500 instead of investing $500 in APRN. Is that better for the world? More irresponsible for YOU, but is it better for the world?

2/ I always thought inheritances were weird. Why would I want or hope for or depend on money I get from my grandmother dying? It's reprehensible when people want that. So, if I shouldn't want that money, and I shouldn't need it, then what's the point of people hoarding all this money and then dying and giving it to people who don't need it? Isn't this something that happens all the time? It seems to be some ill-sighted goal that people have - to leave this "financial legacy" to their family or whatever. Why?

2a/ Maybe some people are just saving up to be able to take care of themselves financially at the end, and they don't use all of it. A lot of people are into the legacy thing though for sure.

A part of an answer to question 2 has to be a question: do you have kids?

This market was being inflated by buybacks because of Trump's dumbass self-importance. Full stop.

The crash was coming and it was the greatest shorting opportunity of a lifetime.

These multiples were ridiculous and needed a haircut. Easy money. You could have retired if you had a margin account 3 weeks ago. Easiest fucking money ever.

2) and 3) Inheritances are wack. I agree. The french system, napoleanic code, is even wacker. I like to troll my mom by telling her I am not leaving my brothers or nieces and nephews any money but am instead giving it all to Planned Parenthood specifically tagged to provide free abortions.

1) is the owner of the synthesizer store a really good person who has no intention of ever profiting from their business in excess and never planning on expanding and do they treat their employees well with a living wage and benefits? I just don't go that in depth because there are traps everywhere. And I am not marrying APRN stock and having to live with it forever and I don't want a synthesizer. Thought experiments on the internet booooooo.

It's fine to still have some punk ethos in you. I drove a bus and worked in a record store in college (and after) and at a radio station. I had to feed and let crash on my floor a lot of deadbeat broke-as-heck band dudes because they were always...broke. As they and I got older it became completely more and more tiresome. People are complicated, your responsibilities change, you don't have to be one thing in life forever.

xpost cheif kyiv, yeah there were some of us on this board a year and half ago talking about what would finally tank the propped up economy. all these people who were newly investing in the market and thinking it was so easy and were so supportive of Trump based on it, were going to have problems.

xpost
Sorry - not meaning to single you out re: APRN. Just used it because it had recently been discussed. And I did not or am not considering buying a $500 synth. Was trying to think of two innocuous examples of things.

Re: inheritances - if you have kids then you need life insurance. I don’t see why it should be a life goal of someone to leave $10k to a 40-year-old granddaughter.

It's fine. I know we were just talking about aprn. It used to be one of my examples of a failed IPO.

Re: savings though. Hopefully you and your partner have communicated future goals and plans to get to the point you want to be in the future and are willing to work together towards that. Investing in the stock market is not an end solution. Like, we know that at some point we might have to take care of 1-3 elderly people in some way (my dad is not included; he sucks) and are prepared for that. I also am not a fan of traditional office jobs so I like freedom away from that, but I am also willing to suck it up and do it if we need it. We are frugal on a daily basis but we don't think twice about paying for nice food and wine with people or indulging in a hobby. We don't have any mortgages or debt and I pretty much don't desire any objects at this point in my life. You have to figure out what is right for you.

Thanks. Yeah - we are essentially on the same page regarding savings. We just don’t have any right now. For the time being we are just trying to get by as my wife doesn’t want to work full time because of young children, and we pay for daycare for a three-year-old, etc. To be clear, by getting rid of extra money, I am talking about $100 in my “allowance” account for going out and getting drinks. If I notice it has piled up more than I need, I feel the urge to rid my account of it. For my real family accounts - that all gets used and/or saved responsibly. I just don’t like dealing with it. If we have credit card debt I am super into getting us out, but when things are running according to plan and we are putting money in savings, I never want to look at it or know about it.

The elderly parents thing is something down the line that definitely feels ominous. I recently became an only child and my dad already has a lot of health problems.

Have you paid off your mortgage or do you rent now? We lived in SF until a couple years ago (no way to buy a house there), so now we are just at the beginning of a 30 year mortgage. Some friends that bought younger have much less than that left.

The crash was coming and it was the greatest shorting opportunity of a lifetime.

These multiples were ridiculous and needed a haircut. Easy money. You could have retired if you had a margin account 3 weeks ago. Easiest fucking money ever.

I probably would've gotten wiped out betting on this in 2019 though

My wife's friend (from the same small town in China) gave me 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' when I first met her. I can't remember a book I've hated more. Many of the things he advises are criminal offenses, many of the others (if they work) are effectively a "fuck you" to other people. I was very pleased to see he'd declared bankruptcy a few years ago.

Oh, that's a book! I didn't quite understand what was going on with that.

Inheritances are wack.

If a granddaughter/other relative takes time off from paid employment to support a family member, that undercuts the relative's work history and lifetime earnings. Inheritances are an EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT of compensating for this and/or other sacrifices made on behalf of relatives. But they are better than nothing.

xpost We own two modest apartments in two locations outright (2 locations work related).

My spouse mostly lets me deal with all the money because I think he would get entirely too stressed out otherwise. It's labor. I don't mind it.

xpost when i consider the wack inheritances, I am thinking of large sums of money being funneled to children and evading taxes like through trusts that contain undervalued artwork/real estate/objects etc. And how it's difficult for people without that past in the US (and other countries) to accumulate that type of wealth over generations.

No one I know in real life talks about money ever. Some friends are partners at big law firms. Some friends are middle school teachers. No one talks about it.

It depends on social norms, but among some groups, the ability to not talk about money is an effect of privilege. I've read Q&A sites where someone has asked why, in her group of friends, the rich friend is the one who gets irritated when someone brings up they can't afford to do an activity, or complains about money issues, and it's just that -- they're uncomfortable because money talk reminds them they don't have that issue. It only really comes up when someone in the conversation feels like an outlier or is currently financially stressed.

SA, when you say "no savings", are you counting an emergency fund? There are a bunch of articles that can say it better than me, but basically deciding what amount it takes you to exist for a month, figuring out how many months you're going to account for to get back to normal, and keeping it somewhere fairly liquid. imo it's not really worth thinking about stocks or other discretionary investing until you've got a stable fallback. That took the anxiety about what to do with money away for me for a while -- just chuck it in a savings account until you have enough to subsist for a while, then circle back.

(xpost) That's what I mean by "inefficiency" (and I use "inefficiency" as a neutral term, rather than "fairness/unfairness."

I don't talk about money because it makes me anxious, I have to be goaded into even looking at my bank balance, as I'm scared it will all be gone. But sometimes friends suggest I do things with them which cost £50 or more and I have to tell them "I'm sorry, I just can't afford that" - seems that my large (rented, full of students I host) house and (meaningless) nice-sounding job title convince lots of people that I must be doing ok.

yeah, so much labor that usually falls on women (like taking care of sick relatives) goes unpaid. which I know is a known thing at this point but it still seems people try to fight it every so often.

xpost one of my friends that I discuss money with likes Mr Money Mustache a lot. It has some good resources. I think I used it years ago to redo credit cards, phone plans, etc. try to figure out where to trim extra unnecessary expenses.

xpost-
Historically we have an emergency fund, but uh I guess we actually had the "emergency" - my wife lost her job about a year ago and it took a while for her to get back on her feet, so we burned through it (and then some) in the year it's taken for her to molt and return to the workforce in a way that works much better for her and our kids. Means much less money for the time being too, but we made that choice.

My initial question about the ethics of stocks is just curiosity and not something I am able to engage in personally right now, aside from stopping my meager 401k contribution and doing that stuff myself. Which is something my father-in-law and brother-in-law do. They are rubbing their hands together talking about some new stock like they are excited about drafting some hot rookie running back in a fantasy football draft. Do you stock mavens get excited about it in that way?

I think the money talk among friends doesn't happen because at this point we are such wildly different financial places and it makes people uncomfortable to address it - like are you more successful in life because you make more money? FUUUUUUUUUCK NO, but our society is conditioned to think that. Your value is tied to your job title and how much you earn. I feel like some of my relatives care about my job more than me - "how's work? are you working hard? what's going on at work?" I just work at a job to provide a life for me and my family and do not want work to enter my mind when I'm not stuck there.

Also another thanks to you all - I hate reading/thinking/managing money and avoid it, but you are making me realize I really do need to read Mr. Money Mustache and whatever other nightmarish-sounding resources to get out of debt (no big whoop for our situation), re-build emergency savings (that will take longer), maybe take the fam on a real vacation someday (seems kinda like a pipe dream right now).

Everything about this was completely predictable. Price to Earnings ratios used to be a sane level of 4-5 ,, something like that ... until the 90s when the Tech revolution happened. Productivity increased and CEOs got high on the supply of multiples
It's not natural. It was never natural for these multiples to persist. So here we are. Price discovery. Sucks if you are a long.
You shouldn't have been a long.

ugh halt again.

"Long, Long, Long": better than any zeppelin song imo

xp they halted again? nice timing with the end of the trump press conference, where he triple/quadrupled down on exploiting coronavirus for racist points

Oh, that's a book! I didn't quite understand what was going on with that.

― Yerac, Wednesday, March 18, 2020 1:40 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh yes. They're among the many crimes against humanity in printed form that I have worked on. Haven't thought about those trash things in years.

xpost yeah volatility index went crazy during the end and then I guess it's a 15 minute halt now.

I totally thought rich dad, poor dad was a weird saying that I didn't know.

tbf there have been bad economic indicators for like 18 months now and the market has only gone up up UP

I think somewhere above over a year ago was me talking about how I felt like I was christian bale in The Big Short but only the beginning part, over and over. I didn't know if I was just projecting my hatred of trump on to the market.

well Yerac it was the trade of a lifetime.
Did you take it?
You present like you are savvy player. But did you take the single best trade of a lifetime?

no, I am still pretty conservative. But I do have a lot of realized gains from the last couple of weeks.

so i guess to answer SA, I don't get excited about stocks or sports. It's just a thing.

I probably should've been a surgeon.

the RD,PD thing is apparently an obnoxious series of books and I've opined that the cover text would be more concise if the obnoxious author just legally changed his name to "Rich Dad"

OK by the way Yerac I worked for the same corp you did .... BNY or BARC ...either way, i was there for it

I am US so I would've done adr ticker.

Really sucked I had 10 grand in LEH stock that Dick Fuld a.k.a Bontrader5759 which was his Yahoo handle .... screwed me

oh yeah you were one of those. I never touched LEH.

I made a shit-ton off LEH when I bought it during the Asian Contasion of 1997 ... that's not the point ... i bought that falling knife like a Mofo
point is I ended up later in life working for a subsidiary of LEH, where we were paid in stock

I was in school in 1997. But yeah, I am not whatever SA was describing above about his in laws. It's a function to make money.

I totally thought rich dad, poor dad was a weird saying that I didn't know.

Where are you that you have been able to avoid ads for RDPD seminars and spam? I assumed, based on the seminar advertising, that it was on the level of those "buy real estate with no money down!" hucksters.

I know who Suze Orman is...and that is probably it. I think I have just filtered out most self help/personal finance/televangelist/wellness types of gurus. I've never had any interest in that.

I know there was a popular asian dude that did finance seminars. I didn't think it was this guy though?