this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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From the Wall Street Journal. Select quotes, rearranged for maximum irony:

The average 401(k) balance was $131,700 at the end of 2024.

“What’s more important to me than having a few extra dollars in my retirement is that this country is set up for success,” Paris said.

The couple have lost $70,000 in retirement savings since January.

“He’s doing some hard work, some things that are very difficult for people to understand and difficult for people to accept,” Williams said, “but it’ll be to our long-term benefit.”

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who haven’t retired and are confident in their retirement prospects fell to 67% from 74% the prior year.

She said she takes solace in the fact that Trump is surrounded by a cabinet full of handpicked experts whose advice she thinks could help avoid further losses.

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[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

No, but 401k balances of non retired people is a meaningless statistic.

No, its pretty important.

See, 401ks do this thing where they are invested in over time... they slowly accumulate from contributions and the index funds of the broad stock market appreciating over time.

... If you... are not yet retired... and your 401k takes a 10, 20, 30% haircut in a recession/depression...

(which are of course broadly predictable and should be expected every 5 to 10 years)

... well now, you not only have suffered that loss... you also reset the clock on how much your investments will appreciate over time.

Growth from interest is an exponential, not linear process.

This means you now have to massively increase your contributions to be able to afford the same retirement... or work longer, or, more realistically, never be able to truly retire.

... and that is assuming stock market growth reverts to the mean, inflation of primary retirement costs don't spike, you don't get laid off or have promotions and expected wage gains postponed in the recession, etc.

I have no doubt that the stock market will increase just as much under Trump as it did under Biden.

Then you are an idiot.

The housing market is crashing, right now, it's begun, go look.

Something around 1/3 of existing homes are looking to be basically uninsurable in the next decade ... insurance companies pay attention to climate change, and they hike rates or pull out of high risk areas.

Unfortunately... a whole lotof US homes are in high risk areas now. And you cannot get a mortgage if you can't get home insurance.

Everyone's credit scores are garbage, consumer credit is out of control, 60+% of Americans can't afford to miss a paycheck, and Americans routinely pay consumer credit rates that are so high they are considered usury almost everywhere else in the developed world. Approximately a third or more of US households have zero to negative net worth, more debt than assets... and their day to day costs are going to go up, and their investment class assets (including homes) are headed downward.

Every major corporation is doing or has recently done massive layoffs.

We're tariffing imported food, and our domestically produced food is reliant on migrant workers who all stopped working at farms because ICE is raiding them.

We are heavily reliant on imports and exports, and we've started a trade war and are threatening multiple new wars.

We are a highly international trade dependant economy ... and we've decided to isolate and ostracize ourselves... we are a 'rogue state' now, using parlance from about a decade ago.

Getting a job is nigh impossible, 30+% of job listings are fake, ghost jobs, no one is hiring, everyone is underpaid other than C suite.

Finally, from a more technical perspective, the most solid predictor of recession/depressions is the inversion of government issued bond yields, ie, when short term lending is viewed as more risky (has a higher interest rate or yield) than long term lending.

Every single time the yield curve inverts, when it uninverts, a downturn rapidly follows.

Except now. Now, we've had the yield curve invert, uninvert, then invert again, and then uninvert again, without the massive downturn...

We are Wile Coyote who has ran off the edge of the cliff, and we just looked down.

We are looking at the second Great Depression.