[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by zendog3

True crashes, as opposed to normal market fluctuations, occur when something is fundamentally wrong in the market. These are not hard to spot, it is just that people don't want to see them coming. The tech bubble, the housing bubble, savings and loan crash.Anyone with half a brain could see them coming a year in advance. What do we have to worry about now? For decades the Republicans were for balanced budgets and the Dems were for investment. Then Ragan busted the budget and lowered taxes. Then Trump gave a huge tax break to the rich and lowered taxes, Now,the Dems are spending without raising taxes. That is a recipe for a crash. Average people are spending $500 K for houses. That is unsustainable. Above it all, wealth inequality is out of control 56 Americans own more of the nations wealth than 60% of the total population. Those things have crash written all over them.

Concerning investment. You are old. You need low risk, low fee investments. Don't pay a financial advisor. Educate yourself, then open an account with Vanguard and put your money in a market matching EFT or mutual fund. Safe, good returns, no fees.

The fees charged by a financial advisor eat into your earnings. They make it hard to see the fees they charge, but your money is putting their kids through Stanford.

Pretty good post - Zen Doggy Dog. You are correct. The wealth disparity IS the US's greatest and most URGENT problem. That's why people look favorably on the 50s and 1960s when wealth was distributed MOSTLY evenly throughout the middle class. Note: unions were active then and off-shoring had NOT yet started. US society IS on a knife's edge today due to wealth disparity and other factors. The stock market works fine for the upper 10% of America. It CAN work for the middle class, but they MUST be SHARP! Home ownership has NEVER worked for the lower classes so they are volatile in this volatile time. Other US problems are Global Warming and overpopulation! Incidentally, Warren Buffet has warned of the excess population for many years. Check the Wickipedia entry on Buffet about this!