Is this bigger than a "don't try and time the market" event?

[bmjohnson35]

Yeah...  my list wasn't to show things are getting better or worse, but that US equities have managed despite terrible events of the past century+. And that while Trump may be a large disruption and may even cause a recession and equities to decline in value, they're probably still the best bet in the long run for passive wealth accumulation.

Berkshire Hathaway's growing pile of cash is perfect example of how someone could think that now is the time to get out of or at least reduce their equity exposure.  How many articles and YouTube videos are posted each month/year predicting economic doom? It's an easy trap to fall into. For me, it's not the crash that's concerning, it's the length of the crash or the time it takes to recover.  For example, if the market crashes severely and we enter a state of stagnation for the next 5-10 years, we could watch our portfolios erode, along with our long-term financial stability.

[Morning Glory]

Agreed. But in my case I don’t already have any Schwab so I don’t feel the need to invest with them.

They are supposed to be the best bank account/credit card combo for USians traveling or temporarily living abroad.  Someone in another thread mentioned Interactive Brokers for that purpose.  Can someone who has traveled more recently chime in on alternatives?

Yes, I moved to Schwab years ago partially because I travel abroad occasionally and they are one of the recommended options for debit cards for that. You can get cash from any ATM, including abroad, with a "fair" exchange rate, and zero fee. And they'll refund you that "this ATM charge a $4 fee". The other option that I know of is the Fidelity debit card. There might be other options, but I don't know or remember them now.

Living, and investing, abroad is obviously more complicated. Due to FATCA and KYC rules most brokers will refuse to do business with you. And this is another reason I'm sticking with Schwab; they actively offer investing services to non-US residents, with their "international" offering, and i believe they have some offices abroad
https://international.schwab.com/

Fidelity is not as helpful, and take the line similar to Vanguard and other brokerages. They will at least not liquidate your account (how kind..), but they will also severely restrict what you can do if you're a non-US resident.
https://www.fidelity.com/accounts/services/investors_outside_US_faq.shtml

It seems like IBKR's offers a service similar to Schwab, so could be another option. I do like that Schwab also has bank service, and I trust them more than IB just based on brand recognition (to me IB is more of a service is see mentioned for the daytrader/WSB types).

I have no experience with either options, so can't speak to actually using it. But just from my research, at least Schwab seems more geared towards these customers and have a system in place.

Thanks! Schwab sounds like a good enough option for visiting family/possibly a month of slow travel/having easy access to cash for emergencies. 

[GuitarStv]

This is a good opportunity to update Dividendman's list of significant events where people tend to question their market strategies. Is Trump 2.0 bigger than...

1900 - Italy's king is assasinated
1901 - Queen Victoria dies, President McKinley is assassinated
1903 - plague in India and China, killing over 12 million pepole
1904 - Russia and Japan go to war
1905 - Russia has a bloody revolution
1906 - San Francisco burns down
1908 - a massive explosion mysteriously happens in Russia, leveling 830 square miles. Truks revolt in the Ottoman empire, a massive earthquake in Italy kills 150 thousand people
1909 - Japan's prince is assasinated
1911 - The Chinese bloody revolution
1912 - the Titanic Sinks
1913 - personal income tax introduced in the US
1914 - WWI starts
1915 - WWI still going, millions dying, Armenian genocide is going on
1916 - yep, WWI still going, tanks and chemical weapons being used, airplanes for dropping bombs
1917 - another russian revolution, this time to communism, WWI still going and the US joins in
1918 - WWI still going, but who cares, the Spanish flu kills 100 MILLION people, 5% of the world's population
1919 - WWI finally ends, spanish flu still killing though
1920 - another plague in India, US outlaws alcohol
1921 - german hyper inflation going on, the Irish declare independence
1922 - some guy named Mussolini takes over Italy
1923 - some dude named Hitler has a failed coup in germany - woo, the world lucked out
1929 - the great depression starts
1930 - Stalin starts killing people all over the place, great depression
1931 - yup, still in the depression
1932 - still there, nothing is getting better
1933 - still depressed, and this time Hitler takes over germany
1934 - The dust bowl starts peaking... i.e. a decade of drought, no crops, everyone starving, this keeps going until 1939!
1935 - dangerous communist social program started in the US (Social Security)
1936 - spanish civil war begins, stalin ramps up his killings into the millions
1937 - Japan invades china
1938 - Hitler annexes Austria, at least he's stopping there
1939 - whoops, maybe, not WWII starts... millions killed, trillions infrastructure wiped out in Europe and across the world
1940 - Nazi's start murdering millions of civilian "undesirables", FDR takes 3rd term ignoring Washington's precedent
1941 - Japan bombs pearl harbor, world still f'd up in a huge war, Vietnam turns communist
1942 - is the warover? nope, just ramping up, millions more dying
1943 - everyone is still dying in WW2
1945 - woohoo, WWII is over, oh wait, that happened by dropping a devastating indiscriminate nuclear radiation bombs on civilians! oh, and FDR died in office
1946 - peace in our time! except the USSR annexes half of europe, which is a pile of rubble thanks to carpet bombing
1947 - India and Pakistan gain independence from Great Britian, and then go to war against each other
1948 - Israel founded, that won't cause any problems. Ghandi gets assassinated
1949 - China becomes communist, USSR, the nemesis of hte free world, gains nuclear weapons
1950 - whoops, another devastating total war, this time in Korea, but not between Koreans, a proxy war between the US/Russia/China and others
1952 - we get a polio vaccine... wait what? Oh yeah, people were getting f'd up by polio for the last forever years
1954 - segregation is ruled illegal in the US, so race relations are finally fixed
1955 - Warsaw pact created, basically a bunch of countries banded together to defeat america/western capitalist democracies
1956 - Hungarian revoltion, Suez crisis
1957 - Russians beat everyone into space
1960 - a 9.6 magnitude earthquake, the biggest ever recorded hits chili, lots of people die, civil rights riots and protests start happening
1961 - US backed rebels unsuccessfully invade Cuba, Berlin wall goes up, more civil rights disruptions, Soviets get the first man in space, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever denoted is denoted, we can now destroy the world
1962 - Now that we have the bombs to blow up the world, the Cuban missile crisis happens, which almost blows up the word
1963 - another president killed in office
1964 - civil rights act passed, ok, now race relations are good for sure, no more civil rights disruptions ever
1965 - US sends a few troops to Vietnam just in case, Malcom X is assassinated, India and Pakistan go to war again
1966 - Chairman Mao has a cultural revolution in china, lots die, the US institutes the draft
1967 - the Australian PM disappears, the six day war between Israel and it's neighbors happens, civil rights unrest continues
1968 - MLK Jr. assassinated, RFK assassinated, Tet Offensive in Vietnam happens, yeah, the Vietnam war is going full speed ahead
1971 - the US capitalist system institutes wage and price controls, India and Pakistan go to war again
1972 - Vietnam war still going on
1973 - US declares victory and leaves vietnam, the US can't get oil because of an embargo
1974 - the US president up and quits
1975 - big Cambodian genocide, Civil war in lebanon, the US president escapes two assassination attempts
1976 - Tangshan earthquake kills a quarter million folks, Vietnam is all communist now
1979 - Iranian revolution, a US nuclear reactor has a partial meltdown
1980 - mount st helens erupts, the US embargoes the USSR, US inflation hits 14%, Iran Iraq war starts, and goes on for 8 years
1981 - someone tries to kill the US president, again
1982 - Falkands war starts, Lebanon war starts
1983 - US embassy bombed, a bunch of coups happening, USSR downs a korean airliner, famine in ethiopia kills half million
1984 - India's PM assassinated
1986 - Russian nuclear reactor melts down
1987 - black monday in US markets
1989 - berlin wall falls, USSR breaking up
1990 - Persian gulf war, Germany reunites, US doing more coupy type things in south america
1991 - USSR officially collapses, Balkans war starts, bosnian genocide starts
1994 - massive genocide in rwanda
1995 - Sarin gas is used in a Tokyo subway, Rabin assassinated
1996 - mad cow disease
1998 - india and pakistan test nukes
1999 - India and pakistan go to war and they have nukes
2000 - .com bust
2000 - election decided by the supreme court
2001 - 9/11, Afghanistan war
2002 - Euro currency created
2003 - 2nd gulf war started
2004 - Indian Ocean Tsunami, killing over 200k people instantly and displacing millions. Facebook is created.
2005 - Hurricane katrina, Youtube online
2006 - Israel lebanon war, North Korea gets Nukes
2007 - Great recession starts
2008 - A cyclone in china and earthquake in myanmar kill over 200k
2009 - great recession continues
2010 - arab spring starts
2011 - Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, Syrian and Libyan civil wars
2014 - ISIS forms, Ebola outbreak in Africa, Russia annexes Crimea
2016 - Trump 1.0
2017 - Rohingya genocide, ISIS captures Mosul
2018 - Venezuelan refugee crisis intensifies, with over 5 Million refugees leaving the country
2019 - Brexit, US-China tariff/trade war continues, Hong Kong democracy protests quashed
2020 - COVID worldwide pandemic
2021 - Taliban recapture Afghanistan
2022 - Russia invades Ukraine in the largest European invasion since WW2
2023 - Hamas attacks Israel, Sudanese civil war/genocide
2024 - Israel Iran Lebanon Hezbollah and Hamas engaged in conflict
2025 - Trump 2.0!

How dare you post evidence that things are going to be fine.  Don't you know people want to freak out?

So… you’d say that everything was fine after each of these events?

Better than fine.  We are living in the best time to be alive in all history.  We are living in a time so stinking rich, that there are entire forums online showing people how to retire early and live off their wealth.

I think the bolded is one of the key parts that people are concerned about. Quite a lot of those events resulted in hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths. Hard to enjoy being stinking rich if you're dead.

The statement "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" is demonstrably false.

If you lived in the UK through Brexit (as an example), you are about 2000 pounds worse off on average.  (3400 if you live in London.)  https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit  - So for the average person in the UK, this is pretty clearly not the best time in history to be alive.  That time would have been pre-Brexit.

Same holds true in many cases.  Hard not to argue that the average person living in Ukraine was a lot happier and better off in 2021 than today.  Any Palestinian living in Gaza was doing better in 2020 than today.  Afghanistan has always been pretty rough, but certainly for women it is much worse today than it was in 2020.

But fuck those people.  They live far away.  So maybe the idea is to tell people in the US that they're living in the best time to be alive in all history?  Well, after two prior decades of increasing, happiness among children aged 13-19 in the US has precipitously declined since 2011 (https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happiness-in-the-united-states-and-the-role-of-digital-media/).  Internet usage, availability of porn, social media, sexting, a reduction of in-person time for relationships and experiences, ubiquitousness of cellphones everywhere - these things are making the world that we live in worse for people growing up in it.  Home affordability, a constantly changing job market (and extreme career uncertainty), concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few elite, secondary educational debt, rampant and ever increasing environmental damage . . . these are serious systemic and unaddressed problems that exist for young working age people.  I don't think you can say that we're in the best time to be alive in all history without taking into account that people (especially young people) are much less happy than they were twenty years ago.

Now, absolutely we do live in a pretty good time historically.  We aren't being stabbed to death for animal pelts or starving most of the time.  But you shouldn't let that build complacency or blind you to the backslide that has been going on in a great many areas around the world though.  In a great many areas we are not improving quality of life, security, or happiness.  That's a serious problem that deserves a better shake than the platitude "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history".

"The statement "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" is demonstrably false."

I respectfully disagree.  I've seen too many documentaries and speeches from authors and scientists who have studied the history of humanity and they generally conclude that now is the best time to be alive.  I agree that we are in troubling times, but it's easy to focus on individual examples of our failings and not recognize the incremental progress we are making.  Here is a recent opinion article covering this very topic:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/opinion/2024-child-mortality-poverty-growth.html

While I respect your opinion, and the opinion of the person who wrote that article . . . that doesn't change the facts.  I've listed a great number of people who are measurably worse off today than just a few years ago - which puts to lie the claim being discussed.  Your article doesn't mention Britons, Ukranians, women living in Afghanistan, or Gazans.  It doesn't make any reference to the crisis of unhappiness currently going on in the United States among young people.  These omissions are telling.

It's certainly possible to make the argument that some people in some countries are living in the best time in their history.  If you're a middle class, white, 40's or older, cis-gendered man living in the US then the argument is quite persuasive.  But you cannot say an all-inclusive "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history".  It's all-inclusive and simply objectively and demonstrably false in too many cases.

[jrhampt]

In addition to Steve's list I'd add women in the US who no longer have full bodily autonomy.

[bmjohnson35]

This is a good opportunity to update Dividendman's list of significant events where people tend to question their market strategies. Is Trump 2.0 bigger than...

1900 - Italy's king is assasinated
1901 - Queen Victoria dies, President McKinley is assassinated
1903 - plague in India and China, killing over 12 million pepole
1904 - Russia and Japan go to war
1905 - Russia has a bloody revolution
1906 - San Francisco burns down
1908 - a massive explosion mysteriously happens in Russia, leveling 830 square miles. Truks revolt in the Ottoman empire, a massive earthquake in Italy kills 150 thousand people
1909 - Japan's prince is assasinated
1911 - The Chinese bloody revolution
1912 - the Titanic Sinks
1913 - personal income tax introduced in the US
1914 - WWI starts
1915 - WWI still going, millions dying, Armenian genocide is going on
1916 - yep, WWI still going, tanks and chemical weapons being used, airplanes for dropping bombs
1917 - another russian revolution, this time to communism, WWI still going and the US joins in
1918 - WWI still going, but who cares, the Spanish flu kills 100 MILLION people, 5% of the world's population
1919 - WWI finally ends, spanish flu still killing though
1920 - another plague in India, US outlaws alcohol
1921 - german hyper inflation going on, the Irish declare independence
1922 - some guy named Mussolini takes over Italy
1923 - some dude named Hitler has a failed coup in germany - woo, the world lucked out
1929 - the great depression starts
1930 - Stalin starts killing people all over the place, great depression
1931 - yup, still in the depression
1932 - still there, nothing is getting better
1933 - still depressed, and this time Hitler takes over germany
1934 - The dust bowl starts peaking... i.e. a decade of drought, no crops, everyone starving, this keeps going until 1939!
1935 - dangerous communist social program started in the US (Social Security)
1936 - spanish civil war begins, stalin ramps up his killings into the millions
1937 - Japan invades china
1938 - Hitler annexes Austria, at least he's stopping there
1939 - whoops, maybe, not WWII starts... millions killed, trillions infrastructure wiped out in Europe and across the world
1940 - Nazi's start murdering millions of civilian "undesirables", FDR takes 3rd term ignoring Washington's precedent
1941 - Japan bombs pearl harbor, world still f'd up in a huge war, Vietnam turns communist
1942 - is the warover? nope, just ramping up, millions more dying
1943 - everyone is still dying in WW2
1945 - woohoo, WWII is over, oh wait, that happened by dropping a devastating indiscriminate nuclear radiation bombs on civilians! oh, and FDR died in office
1946 - peace in our time! except the USSR annexes half of europe, which is a pile of rubble thanks to carpet bombing
1947 - India and Pakistan gain independence from Great Britian, and then go to war against each other
1948 - Israel founded, that won't cause any problems. Ghandi gets assassinated
1949 - China becomes communist, USSR, the nemesis of hte free world, gains nuclear weapons
1950 - whoops, another devastating total war, this time in Korea, but not between Koreans, a proxy war between the US/Russia/China and others
1952 - we get a polio vaccine... wait what? Oh yeah, people were getting f'd up by polio for the last forever years
1954 - segregation is ruled illegal in the US, so race relations are finally fixed
1955 - Warsaw pact created, basically a bunch of countries banded together to defeat america/western capitalist democracies
1956 - Hungarian revoltion, Suez crisis
1957 - Russians beat everyone into space
1960 - a 9.6 magnitude earthquake, the biggest ever recorded hits chili, lots of people die, civil rights riots and protests start happening
1961 - US backed rebels unsuccessfully invade Cuba, Berlin wall goes up, more civil rights disruptions, Soviets get the first man in space, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever denoted is denoted, we can now destroy the world
1962 - Now that we have the bombs to blow up the world, the Cuban missile crisis happens, which almost blows up the word
1963 - another president killed in office
1964 - civil rights act passed, ok, now race relations are good for sure, no more civil rights disruptions ever
1965 - US sends a few troops to Vietnam just in case, Malcom X is assassinated, India and Pakistan go to war again
1966 - Chairman Mao has a cultural revolution in china, lots die, the US institutes the draft
1967 - the Australian PM disappears, the six day war between Israel and it's neighbors happens, civil rights unrest continues
1968 - MLK Jr. assassinated, RFK assassinated, Tet Offensive in Vietnam happens, yeah, the Vietnam war is going full speed ahead
1971 - the US capitalist system institutes wage and price controls, India and Pakistan go to war again
1972 - Vietnam war still going on
1973 - US declares victory and leaves vietnam, the US can't get oil because of an embargo
1974 - the US president up and quits
1975 - big Cambodian genocide, Civil war in lebanon, the US president escapes two assassination attempts
1976 - Tangshan earthquake kills a quarter million folks, Vietnam is all communist now
1979 - Iranian revolution, a US nuclear reactor has a partial meltdown
1980 - mount st helens erupts, the US embargoes the USSR, US inflation hits 14%, Iran Iraq war starts, and goes on for 8 years
1981 - someone tries to kill the US president, again
1982 - Falkands war starts, Lebanon war starts
1983 - US embassy bombed, a bunch of coups happening, USSR downs a korean airliner, famine in ethiopia kills half million
1984 - India's PM assassinated
1986 - Russian nuclear reactor melts down
1987 - black monday in US markets
1989 - berlin wall falls, USSR breaking up
1990 - Persian gulf war, Germany reunites, US doing more coupy type things in south america
1991 - USSR officially collapses, Balkans war starts, bosnian genocide starts
1994 - massive genocide in rwanda
1995 - Sarin gas is used in a Tokyo subway, Rabin assassinated
1996 - mad cow disease
1998 - india and pakistan test nukes
1999 - India and pakistan go to war and they have nukes
2000 - .com bust
2000 - election decided by the supreme court
2001 - 9/11, Afghanistan war
2002 - Euro currency created
2003 - 2nd gulf war started
2004 - Indian Ocean Tsunami, killing over 200k people instantly and displacing millions. Facebook is created.
2005 - Hurricane katrina, Youtube online
2006 - Israel lebanon war, North Korea gets Nukes
2007 - Great recession starts
2008 - A cyclone in china and earthquake in myanmar kill over 200k
2009 - great recession continues
2010 - arab spring starts
2011 - Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, Syrian and Libyan civil wars
2014 - ISIS forms, Ebola outbreak in Africa, Russia annexes Crimea
2016 - Trump 1.0
2017 - Rohingya genocide, ISIS captures Mosul
2018 - Venezuelan refugee crisis intensifies, with over 5 Million refugees leaving the country
2019 - Brexit, US-China tariff/trade war continues, Hong Kong democracy protests quashed
2020 - COVID worldwide pandemic
2021 - Taliban recapture Afghanistan
2022 - Russia invades Ukraine in the largest European invasion since WW2
2023 - Hamas attacks Israel, Sudanese civil war/genocide
2024 - Israel Iran Lebanon Hezbollah and Hamas engaged in conflict
2025 - Trump 2.0!

How dare you post evidence that things are going to be fine.  Don't you know people want to freak out?

So… you’d say that everything was fine after each of these events?

Better than fine.  We are living in the best time to be alive in all history.  We are living in a time so stinking rich, that there are entire forums online showing people how to retire early and live off their wealth.

I think the bolded is one of the key parts that people are concerned about. Quite a lot of those events resulted in hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths. Hard to enjoy being stinking rich if you're dead.

The statement "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" is demonstrably false.

If you lived in the UK through Brexit (as an example), you are about 2000 pounds worse off on average.  (3400 if you live in London.)  https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit  - So for the average person in the UK, this is pretty clearly not the best time in history to be alive.  That time would have been pre-Brexit.

Same holds true in many cases.  Hard not to argue that the average person living in Ukraine was a lot happier and better off in 2021 than today.  Any Palestinian living in Gaza was doing better in 2020 than today.  Afghanistan has always been pretty rough, but certainly for women it is much worse today than it was in 2020.

But fuck those people.  They live far away.  So maybe the idea is to tell people in the US that they're living in the best time to be alive in all history?  Well, after two prior decades of increasing, happiness among children aged 13-19 in the US has precipitously declined since 2011 (https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happiness-in-the-united-states-and-the-role-of-digital-media/).  Internet usage, availability of porn, social media, sexting, a reduction of in-person time for relationships and experiences, ubiquitousness of cellphones everywhere - these things are making the world that we live in worse for people growing up in it.  Home affordability, a constantly changing job market (and extreme career uncertainty), concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few elite, secondary educational debt, rampant and ever increasing environmental damage . . . these are serious systemic and unaddressed problems that exist for young working age people.  I don't think you can say that we're in the best time to be alive in all history without taking into account that people (especially young people) are much less happy than they were twenty years ago.

Now, absolutely we do live in a pretty good time historically.  We aren't being stabbed to death for animal pelts or starving most of the time.  But you shouldn't let that build complacency or blind you to the backslide that has been going on in a great many areas around the world though.  In a great many areas we are not improving quality of life, security, or happiness.  That's a serious problem that deserves a better shake than the platitude "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history".

"The statement "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" is demonstrably false."

I respectfully disagree.  I've seen too many documentaries and speeches from authors and scientists who have studied the history of humanity and they generally conclude that now is the best time to be alive.  I agree that we are in troubling times, but it's easy to focus on individual examples of our failings and not recognize the incremental progress we are making.  Here is a recent opinion article covering this very topic:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/opinion/2024-child-mortality-poverty-growth.html

While I respect your opinion, and the opinion of the person who wrote that article . . . that doesn't change the facts.  I've listed a great number of people who are measurably worse off today than just a few years ago - which puts to lie the claim being discussed.  Your article doesn't mention Britons, Ukranians, women living in Afghanistan, or Gazans.  It doesn't make any reference to the crisis of unhappiness currently going on in the United States among young people.  These omissions are telling.

It's certainly possible to make the argument that some people in some countries are living in the best time in their history.  If you're a middle class, white, 40's or older, cis-gendered man living in the US then the argument is quite persuasive.  But you cannot say an all-inclusive "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history".  It's all-inclusive and simply objectively and demonstrably false in too many cases.

I never perceived that statement as "All-Inclusive." 

[GuitarStv]

I never perceived that statement as "All-Inclusive."

I read "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" as being inclusive of everyone.  But, like I said, if you're largely referring to middle class, straight, white, male, 40+ citizens of the US then I totally agree with the comment.

[Tyson]

While I respect your opinion, and the opinion of the person who wrote that article . . . that doesn't change the facts.  I've listed a great number of people who are measurably worse off today than just a few years ago - which puts to lie the claim being discussed.  Your article doesn't mention Britons, Ukranians, women living in Afghanistan, or Gazans.  It doesn't make any reference to the crisis of unhappiness currently going on in the United States among young people.  These omissions are telling.

It's certainly possible to make the argument that some people in some countries are living in the best time in their history.  If you're a middle class, white, 40's or older, cis-gendered man living in the US then the argument is quite persuasive.  But you cannot say an all-inclusive "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history".  It's all-inclusive and simply objectively and demonstrably false in too many cases.

Normally I don't see your posts because I have you on my ignore list.  Because I've noticed in almost every post you make it's always a negative take on whatever is being discussed.  You are an incredibly negative person and I just don't need that in my life.  But I made the mistake of doing a 'show post'.....

I agree that life it not perfect (or even great) for everyone.  But the overall trend for humanity as a whole is pretty damn amazing.  Here's some data to back up what I'm saying. 

This is the least autocratic time (ie, most democratic) time in all history - https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Life expectancy has almost doubled! in the last 100 years from 32 to the 73!!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?focus=~OWID_WRL

World literacy is the highest its ever been in all history, from 12% 200 years ago to almost 90% today - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-rates

Extreme poverty has dropped from 80% to 8% today.  That's amazing!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-between-different-poverty-thresholds-historical

Infant mortality has dropped from 30% to around 3%.   Can you imagine as a parent, losing 30% of your children?  Again, things are way better nowadays - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?country=USA~GBR~SWE~FRA~BRA~IND~OWID_WRL

If we look at world GDP, we are ridiculously wealthy compared to all history.  I mean the data just forms a hockey stick over the last 200 years - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run

If you are concerned about climate, more great news - we deployed renewables are the highest level in all history this past year.  And you can see the data lines are moving in an increasing rate.  Hell, here in CO we've already hit 52% renewables in our energy generation last year.  China is building solar farms at the rate equivalent to 7 new nuclear power plants per month!  https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy

Contrary to localized issues (like US teenagers), globally, happiness/satisfaction with life is on the rise.  https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

I know people like you in real life.  You simply don't ever WANT to be happy.  So no matter what the data shows, you will find a way to feel bad.  Which is fine.  You are going back on my ignore list as of right now.  You might respond (or not), but I won't see it if you do.

[LennStar]

I never perceived that statement as "All-Inclusive."

I read "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" as being inclusive of everyone.  But, like I said, if you're largely referring to middle class, straight, white, male, 40+ citizens of the US then I totally agree with the comment.

I am sure we are all awasre that this was not meant as an absolute all inclusive. That can't be right, never, especially on an individual level.
However there are broad trends and I would argue the top of that was somewhere around 2010.

Just take Tysons first point:

This is the least autocratic time (ie, most democratic) time in all history - https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Just opening it will show a significant drop in democracy, with the highest point in 2004, 2010 or 2012, depending what you look at.
And this does not even include the rise of fascist politicians/parties, like Trump in the US or the AfD in Germany, which got the most votes everywhere in the former GDR except the 2 biggest cities.


I would also strongly go against his point of the climate - we likely broke the 1,5°C goal last year, which means whatever it will be, it will be catatrophic, the question is just how much. There are already significant increases in deadly weather and weather damages.

Also the happiness graph of Europe ends in 2016 - a time of economic hight, before Brexit and Ukraine. I doubt the levels are the same.

I think there are 2 general trends: Life is getting better for those who are still on the lower levels - many Chinese, Africans and some South American countries. Because improvement is cheaper and even with e.g. high corruption levels there is still enough improvement left to increase general levels.
But for the Top 25 countries, life for those not in the top quarter has gotten harder - which is a huge factor in the rise of the fascists.

It's what happened to the US Democrats: They looked at the statistics and told people that life was getting better. But that is not true for the lower stratas. Definitely not on a relative scale and sometimes not on an absolute scale.

It took, in Germany, until 2018 for the lowest 10% of income to reach the 2000 levels (price adjusted) again. And then the Corona and Ukraine inflation hit, with heating and food having the highest inflation. I don't know the current value but I am pretty sure we are under 2000 levels (pre Agenda 2010 to be precise) again.
But those are absolute levels. They are bad enough. In the same time the top 10% more than doubled their wealth and the top 1% nearly doubled their income.
If there is one constant in human societies it is this: The more unequal the distribution of wealth, the more likely a - in most cases very violent - upheavel is. This is literally what our oldest written documents are about.

[GuitarStv]

I agree that life it not perfect (or even great) for everyone.  But the overall trend for humanity as a whole is pretty damn amazing.  Here's some data to back up what I'm saying. 

This is the least autocratic time (ie, most democratic) time in all history - https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Life expectancy has almost doubled! in the last 100 years from 32 to the 73!!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?focus=~OWID_WRL

World literacy is the highest its ever been in all history, from 12% 200 years ago to almost 90% today - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-rates

Extreme poverty has dropped from 80% to 8% today.  That's amazing!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-between-different-poverty-thresholds-historical

Infant mortality has dropped from 30% to around 3%.   Can you imagine as a parent, losing 30% of your children?  Again, things are way better nowadays - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?country=USA~GBR~SWE~FRA~BRA~IND~OWID_WRL

If we look at world GDP, we are ridiculously wealthy compared to all history.  I mean the data just forms a hockey stick over the last 200 years - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run

Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you've written here.  On average in most (if not all) of the world, things are much better today than 100 or 200 years ago.  That trend is amazing, and certainly something to be happy about.

I think that where we differ though is that while we look pretty damned good compared to an ancient Roman or a peon living in the dark ages, the improvement isn't holding up as well over the past 30 or so years.  Particularly in places where standard of living was very high in the 80s (The US, Canada, much of Western Europe).  It takes effort and work to hold things at a high level, and even more to continue to see things improve.  When things stop improving or regress (as they have in many instances) recently, this feels like a problem that should cause a little concern.  For example, I don't like that worldwide democracy seems to have peaked and be on the decline over the past decade (according to your own chart).

In Canada, the 1900s were infinitely better than the 1400s in Italy.  But I'm sure glad those 1900s Canadians didn't sit around patting themselves on the back and instead strove to be better.

If you are concerned about climate, more great news - we deployed renewables are the highest level in all history this past year.  And you can see the data lines are moving in an increasing rate.  Hell, here in CO we've already hit 52% renewables in our energy generation last year.  China is building solar farms at the rate equivalent to 7 new nuclear power plants per month!  https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy

The environment is a big topic.  I love that there is movement on renewables.  It's certainly good.  To date, there has been zero world-wide improvement in the greenhouse gases that we're dumping into the environment (like clockwork at a more rapid rate every year - unfortunately, much of the improvement in poverty, time and resources for education, and wealth are directly connected to this).  There is no realistic solution to the climate problem to date.  So sure, I've got concerns on this area.  I'm sorry that this bums you out.  It bums me out too.  I just think that blanket denial is a bad policy to deal with problems.

Contrary to localized issues (like US teenagers), globally, happiness/satisfaction with life is on the rise.  https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

Also great.  Moving out of poverty and starvation really helps put some smiles on faces of course.  Of course, it doesn't change the unhappiness epidemic that has been going on among the youth in the US and Canada for decades now.  I'm not sure that dismissing it as you appear to be doing is the best approach to the problem.  It exists.  It needs to be acknowledged and discussed before it can ever be solved.

I know people like you in real life.  You simply don't ever WANT to be happy.  So no matter what the data shows, you will find a way to feel bad.  Which is fine.  You are going back on my ignore list as of right now.  You might respond (or not), but I won't see it if you do.

I doubt very much that you know someone very much like me.  I'm not miserable (although there are certainly some topics that bum me out, and I suspect that you and I process things in quite different ways).  If we ever get some good data on the issues that are bumming me out, maybe we'll have a chance to test your theory.

[Tyson]

I never perceived that statement as "All-Inclusive."

I read "We are living in the best time to be alive in all history" as being inclusive of everyone.  But, like I said, if you're largely referring to middle class, straight, white, male, 40+ citizens of the US then I totally agree with the comment.

I am sure we are all awasre that this was not meant as an absolute all inclusive. That can't be right, never, especially on an individual level.
However there are broad trends and I would argue the top of that was somewhere around 2010.

Just take Tysons first point:

This is the least autocratic time (ie, most democratic) time in all history - https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Just opening it will show a significant drop in democracy, with the highest point in 2004, 2010 or 2012, depending what you look at.
And this does not even include the rise of fascist politicians/parties, like Trump in the US or the AfD in Germany, which got the most votes everywhere in the former GDR except the 2 biggest cities.


I would also strongly go against his point of the climate - we likely broke the 1,5°C goal last year, which means whatever it will be, it will be catatrophic, the question is just how much. There are already significant increases in deadly weather and weather damages.

Also the happiness graph of Europe ends in 2016 - a time of economic hight, before Brexit and Ukraine. I doubt the levels are the same.

I think there are 2 general trends: Life is getting better for those who are still on the lower levels - many Chinese, Africans and some South American countries. Because improvement is cheaper and even with e.g. high corruption levels there is still enough improvement left to increase general levels.
But for the Top 25 countries, life for those not in the top quarter has gotten harder - which is a huge factor in the rise of the fascists.

It's what happened to the US Democrats: They looked at the statistics and told people that life was getting better. But that is not true for the lower stratas. Definitely not on a relative scale and sometimes not on an absolute scale.

It took, in Germany, until 2018 for the lowest 10% of income to reach the 2000 levels (price adjusted) again. And then the Corona and Ukraine inflation hit, with heating and food having the highest inflation. I don't know the current value but I am pretty sure we are under 2000 levels (pre Agenda 2010 to be precise) again.
But those are absolute levels. They are bad enough. In the same time the top 10% more than doubled their wealth and the top 1% nearly doubled their income.
If there is one constant in human societies it is this: The more unequal the distribution of wealth, the more likely a - in most cases very violent - upheavel is. This is literally what our oldest written documents are about.

I agree, we are slightly down from 2010ish all time highs.  But that just means things are only slightly less awesome now vs 100 years ago.

And I never said things were awesome for everyone at all levels.  Only that if you are alive today it a much better world to live in than in all history.  Now, the trends might have flattened, or even regressed a little.  But even with some regression, things are still WAY better than pretty much all history. 

Humans have a negativity bias.  Which served us well when we were hunter gatherers in a hostile world that was actively trying to kill us.  People without a negativity bias simply didn't survive.  But we are no longer living as hunter gatherers.  But our programming hasn't caught up to our new reality of much greater safety and much higher health/wealth. 

Practically I see it play out in a lot of places.  People assume that the good things are fragile or they simply won't last.  On the right you see it as religiously inspired 'the world is going to end' because of god.  On the left you see it as 'the world is going to end because of climate change'.  In financial areas you see it play out every year with people predicting a big market drop. 

Hey, I am no better.  I also have my own negativity bias.  But I learned to control it by unplugging from the news which is all just crisis porn.

I take action on the things that I have control over (ie, stop burning stuff for energy, work from home, walk for errands, vote every election for dem candidates).  These are things I have control over.

But things like changing the supreme court?  Removing a president from office?  Changing a red state to blue?  These are things I have no control and no ability to take any action on.  Besides, we live in a democracy.  The only real way to address these issues is to actually win the next elections.  Which I will vote in, like I always do.

[dragoncar]

Yeah...  my list wasn't to show things are getting better or worse, but that US equities have managed despite terrible events of the past century+. And that while Trump may be a large disruption and may even cause a recession and equities to decline in value, they're probably still the best bet in the long run for passive wealth accumulation.

Berkshire Hathaway's growing pile of cash is perfect example of how someone could think that now is the time to get out of or at least reduce their equity exposure.  How many articles and YouTube videos are posted each month/year predicting economic doom? It's an easy trap to fall into. For me, it's not the crash that's concerning, it's the length of the crash or the time it takes to recover.  For example, if the market crashes severely and we enter a state of stagnation for the next 5-10 years, we could watch our portfolios erode, along with our long-term financial stability.

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

[Tyson]

I agree that life it not perfect (or even great) for everyone.  But the overall trend for humanity as a whole is pretty damn amazing.  Here's some data to back up what I'm saying. 

This is the least autocratic time (ie, most democratic) time in all history - https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Life expectancy has almost doubled! in the last 100 years from 32 to the 73!!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?focus=~OWID_WRL

World literacy is the highest its ever been in all history, from 12% 200 years ago to almost 90% today - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-rates

Extreme poverty has dropped from 80% to 8% today.  That's amazing!  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-between-different-poverty-thresholds-historical

Infant mortality has dropped from 30% to around 3%.   Can you imagine as a parent, losing 30% of your children?  Again, things are way better nowadays - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?country=USA~GBR~SWE~FRA~BRA~IND~OWID_WRL

If we look at world GDP, we are ridiculously wealthy compared to all history.  I mean the data just forms a hockey stick over the last 200 years - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run

Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you've written here.  On average in most (if not all) of the world, things are much better today than 100 or 200 years ago.  That trend is amazing, and certainly something to be happy about.

I think that where we differ though is that while we look pretty damned good compared to an ancient Roman or a peon living in the dark ages, the improvement isn't holding up as well over the past 30 or so years.  Particularly in places where standard of living was very high in the 80s (The US, Canada, much of Western Europe).  It takes effort and work to hold things at a high level, and even more to continue to see things improve.  When things stop improving or regress (as they have in many instances) recently, this feels like a problem that should cause a little concern.  For example, I don't like that worldwide democracy seems to have peaked and be on the decline over the past decade (according to your own chart).

In Canada, the 1900s were infinitely better than the 1400s in Italy.  But I'm sure glad those 1900s Canadians didn't sit around patting themselves on the back and instead strove to be better.

If you are concerned about climate, more great news - we deployed renewables are the highest level in all history this past year.  And you can see the data lines are moving in an increasing rate.  Hell, here in CO we've already hit 52% renewables in our energy generation last year.  China is building solar farms at the rate equivalent to 7 new nuclear power plants per month!  https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy

The environment is a big topic.  I love that there is movement on renewables.  It's certainly good.  To date, there has been zero world-wide improvement in the greenhouse gases that we're dumping into the environment (like clockwork at a more rapid rate every year - unfortunately, much of the improvement in poverty, time and resources for education, and wealth are directly connected to this).  There is no realistic solution to the climate problem to date.  So sure, I've got concerns on this area.  I'm sorry that this bums you out.  It bums me out too.  I just think that blanket denial is a bad policy to deal with problems.

Contrary to localized issues (like US teenagers), globally, happiness/satisfaction with life is on the rise.  https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

Also great.  Moving out of poverty and starvation really helps put some smiles on faces of course.  Of course, it doesn't change the unhappiness epidemic that has been going on among the youth in the US and Canada for decades now.  I'm not sure that dismissing it as you appear to be doing is the best approach to the problem.  It exists.  It needs to be acknowledged and discussed before it can ever be solved.

I know people like you in real life.  You simply don't ever WANT to be happy.  So no matter what the data shows, you will find a way to feel bad.  Which is fine.  You are going back on my ignore list as of right now.  You might respond (or not), but I won't see it if you do.

I doubt very much that you know someone very much like me.  I'm not miserable (although there are certainly some topics that bum me out, and I suspect that you and I process things in quite different ways).  If we ever get some good data on the issues that are bumming me out, maybe we'll have a chance to test your theory.

I couldn't help it, I took a peak, haha.  It does seem like we agree more than we disagree.  Especially global problems are trending in the right direction. 

The other problems (lets call them 'localized' problems as opposed to the global trends we already agree on), I also agree with you, they are problems and they need to be addressed. 

My actual attitude is "things are pretty awesome, especially compared to all history, but things are not perfect and there's still work to do".  Mostly I'm grateful to all the awesome humans that came before me to make the world I'm in so amazing.  That baseline of gratefulness allows me to have a good core level of happiness in my day to day life. 

I assumed this type of emotional resiliency would be more common on the MMM forums with the overall emphasis on stoicism and self reliance.

I see a lot of panic and fear in this thread and I just don't see how people can live their lives like that.  And for the next 4 years?  That is allowing an external force (politics) to have way too much control over your day to day experience of the world.

[Kmp2]

That Dividendman's list is interesting.
I'm assuming that the perspective this list is written from is an American perspective wrt the American stock index.
I'm pretty sure the perspective changes if you were say Chinese in China, or Polish, or Rwandan, or German, etc.  during some of these events.

The difference here, is it's the American democracy, American rule of law that's in question. The checks and balances may hold, they may not only time will tell.
This may merely be another recession, a deep depression (combined with climate/disease related food shortages again)... or at it's worst it could be the fall of the American Empire.

I don't think any of the events on that list hinted that the USA might not be a trustworthy country anymore - but some of them show us what happens in the local markets when things fail.

[SuperNintendo Chalmers]

Yeah, I'm confused by the comments along the lines of, I'll just vote in the next election, or a list of events since 1901.  I took the "event" the OP is talking about as including current indicia that the US may cease to be a democracy. 

Obviously it's totally cool to not think that's going to come to pass.  But I don't think it's unreasonable to consider whether it will, and in that case, a prior or illusory ability to vote and a list of relatively recent global events, none of which involved the President/VP of the US explicitly signaling the end of a democratic form of government, seems ancillary to the question.  And even if past events had parallels, it seems reasonable to consider whether the present context is different from past contexts. 

(Not to mention the points already made that for many millions of people, it may have made a life-saving difference to be asking these questions shortly after some of the events listed.) 

[evme]

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

Is there uncertainty about Buffett's succesor at Berkshire Hathaway? In his most recent shareholder letter Buffett said "At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

I'm not seeing much uncertainty there.

[dragoncar]

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

Is there uncertainty about Buffett's succesor at Berkshire Hathaway? In his most recent shareholder letter Buffett said "At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

I'm not seeing much uncertainty there.

I don’t mean there’s no plan.  I mean it’s uncertain if the successors will have the Buffett magic.  I’m sure they are all technically qualified and do all the research/legwork for him but he still calls the shots at this point right?

[NorthernIkigai]

To continue scandium’s exercise, assuming you can transfer the money electronically but are worried about seizure, I guess you could buy gold/cash in the target country.  For example if I move i could withdraw cash and give it to family members.  That would beat trying to carry it across borders myself.  If something like that wouldn’t work (for example, destination government in total cahoots with the US), then the destination country probably was already a bad choice

Also considered simply transfer directly to family abroad.  From what I can tell with quick googling I don’t think gift tax is a big problem at my level of wealth.  If this is a preemptive measure taken over several years, then the limits involved are more than I’d need

In some countries, it's the recipient who's liable to pay gift tax. And it's of course calculated according to that country's taxation.

[dividendman]

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

Is there uncertainty about Buffett's succesor at Berkshire Hathaway? In his most recent shareholder letter Buffett said "At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

I'm not seeing much uncertainty there.

I don’t mean there’s no plan.  I mean it’s uncertain if the successors will have the Buffett magic.  I’m sure they are all technically qualified and do all the research/legwork for him but he still calls the shots at this point right?

When Buffet dies, Berkshire might go down... it could be a good buying opportunity. Occasionally I am tempted to put all my non-tax sheltered money in Berkshire because there are no dividends (despite my name, I hate dividends now) to be taxed and it seems like a good hedge against the impending recession.... but we haven't had a prolonged downturn in stocks since 2008... so who knows when it'll come.

[dragoncar]

despite my name, I hate dividends now

My world is shaken to the core

[tooqk4u22]

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

Is there uncertainty about Buffett's succesor at Berkshire Hathaway? In his most recent shareholder letter Buffett said "At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

I'm not seeing much uncertainty there.

I don’t mean there’s no plan.  I mean it’s uncertain if the successors will have the Buffett magic.  I’m sure they are all technically qualified and do all the research/legwork for him but he still calls the shots at this point right?

When Buffet dies, Berkshire might go down... it could be a good buying opportunity. Occasionally I am tempted to put all my non-tax sheltered money in Berkshire because there are no dividends (despite my name, I hate dividends now) to be taxed and it seems like a good hedge against the impending recession.... but we haven't had a prolonged downturn in stocks since 2008... so who knows when it'll come.

I wonder about the tax aspect of berkshire.  Setting aside the captive (private) companies for the moment - if Berkshire receives dividends from it stock and interests from its large cash/treasuries and/or sells stock with gains - it all gets taxed.   If Berkshire were to pay dividends it would be essentially triple taxed [ex. for Coke (1) tax on net income, (2) tax on dividend to Berkshire, (3) tax on dividend paid to owner of Berkshire shares.....I guess you could also add tax on gain if Coke were sold by Berkshire]

Wouldn't it be more tax efficient to own the stocks/treasuries directly instead of through Berkshire?  The private companies should be where the real money and outsized returns are.

[dividendman]

I was thinking now would be a perfect time to just buy BRK and get the built-in cash position, but then I remembered that Buffett is super old and there's a decent amount of uncertainty regarding succession

Is there uncertainty about Buffett's succesor at Berkshire Hathaway? In his most recent shareholder letter Buffett said "At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

I'm not seeing much uncertainty there.

I don’t mean there’s no plan.  I mean it’s uncertain if the successors will have the Buffett magic.  I’m sure they are all technically qualified and do all the research/legwork for him but he still calls the shots at this point right?

When Buffet dies, Berkshire might go down... it could be a good buying opportunity. Occasionally I am tempted to put all my non-tax sheltered money in Berkshire because there are no dividends (despite my name, I hate dividends now) to be taxed and it seems like a good hedge against the impending recession.... but we haven't had a prolonged downturn in stocks since 2008... so who knows when it'll come.

I wonder about the tax aspect of berkshire.  Setting aside the captive (private) companies for the moment - if Berkshire receives dividends from it stock and interests from its large cash/treasuries and/or sells stock with gains - it all gets taxed.   If Berkshire were to pay dividends it would be essentially triple taxed [ex. for Coke (1) tax on net income, (2) tax on dividend to Berkshire, (3) tax on dividend paid to owner of Berkshire shares.....I guess you could also add tax on gain if Coke were sold by Berkshire]

Wouldn't it be more tax efficient to own the stocks/treasuries directly instead of through Berkshire?  The private companies should be where the real money and outsized returns are.

Well, as you say, it's the wholly own subsidiaries that make the big difference. Berkshire has many wholly owned subsidaries (like BNSF, GEICO, etc.) that themselves would be S&P500 companies if they were independent. So, you get taxed the same on their dividends from apple and coke, but less on the wholly owned companies. It seems a lot more efficient.