You know people have gotten too complacent about investing in the stock market and what it takes to grow real wealth when…
- People bragging about becoming 401(k) millionaires and posting their balances on social media has become a “thing” (remember when everyone from the company executives to the janitor were bragging at the water cooler about being real estate millionaires, just before the last crash?)
- People start to think they can actually retire comfortably on $1,000,000 (you can’t, because the IRS will take at least 25% – 33% off the top, and you’ll need $500,000 just to cover out-of-pocket healthcare and long-term care costs in retirement)
- The personal savings rate fell to its third-lowest on record at the end of 2017
- Consumer spending is rising, and more of it is being fueled by debt (the last quarter registered the second-largest percentage increase in charge-card debt in a decade)
- Inflation is taking a bigger bite out of Americans’ paychecks (real average hourly earnings of 80% of employees fell by half a percent in January – its fifth decline in six months)
- Hundreds of major companies have price earnings ratios that are higher than during the height of the 2000 and 2007 bubbles
- For a decade now, central banks have pretended they can print up prosperity (which they’ve done at a magnitude beyond imagination… and we’re supposed to have blind faith that they know what they’re doing)
[Read more…] “7 Warning Flags and Financial Risk Factors We Face Today”