Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Quote of the Day

September 30, 2015
How to draw down your retirement savings

When markets are in a downturn, "great, tighten the belt," Ward said. Conversely, a strong market can enable retirees to draw down a bit more, since they will still be leaving plenty of savings in the portfolio.

Markets have been in a downturn this year. Great, tighten the belt. And if enough people tighten the belts, the markets will continue the downturn.

Where might it end? Great Depression II tightens the rust belt?

Aren't death spirals fun? Many financial experts like to talk about the wealth effect. What they don't often say is that it can easily work in both directions. Sigh.

2 comments:

Mr Slippery said...

I don't think there is much evidence of a wealth effect when financial assets rise in price. There is probably not much of a negative wealth effect when financial assets tank, at least from the financial assets themselves.

If a crash causes a company to BK and people lose jobs, that has a big negative wealth effect. For the 99%, it's all about the cash flow.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Mr Slippery,

Safeway sold one of its nearby stores to Haggen not long ago. We've been looking through the fliers and nothing ever really popped up tgst made us want to visit.

That changed yesterday. My girlfriend bought a lot of stuff on sale. She said the place was depressing. There weren't hardly any customers.

She was talking to tge employee about it and that employee shared that she had just been given two months notice. She moved near this store to take yhe job, has kids, and now won't have a job. She nearly cried while explaining it. She actually transferred to this store from another one. Very sad.

So yeah, for most it is all about the cash flow. Sigh. :(