I just hope it doesn't affect my ability to buy a manly theme or affect my manliness

annnnd Triggered

I'm not certain the numbers are "contrived". A business has to register workers with the IRS/Social security number to take taxes etc. That's how I believe these numbers are reported.

NIB games right now are just too expensive anymore period for me anywise. Even the secondary pin market for newer games is nuts and has been for a while. I'd rather buy new windows for my house to save on heating/cooling or something right now however, I'm a hypocrite in buying a newer game recently so don't listen to me

The markets, economy etc...

I know people are worried right now with inflation and looming recession but my finance guy came over the other night for our semi annual meeting to discuss what's going on with the economy. There was good news and not great news but not terrible news. I'm no roadmap to explaining finance but this is how I understood things. As far as recessions go the economy right now is not technically in a recession. In a recession, there is high unemployment which there isn't right now. We cant fill all the jobs available. The "weirdness" all things of the economy and markets can be chalked up to pandemic related - supply chains, China not producing goods etc. Coming out of the pandemic, people have money are are spending. To counteract this the Fed has been raising interest rates to curb inflation. People where still spending so they kept raising. Its touchy with raising the rates to dial in inflation. Too much will throw you into a recession. Its like Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears. The Fed is going to raise rates again probably 2 more times before next year. We are probably going to have a recession though. Historically, recessions don't last that long - about 6 months. The "Great Recession" of 2008 last about 18 months. People that are panicking and pulling money out of the markets or making big changes to their 401k's are probably going to loose more money in end. Last week the market took a dive -800 points and finished up 300. People that day trade have to be loosing their minds. When the market is like it is its better to buy than to sell if you can and have your portfolio diversified. Compound interest is a good thing.

The not so bad news if you look at years that finished negative vs positive since the 1920s there have been more positive by a long shot. When looking at the longest run of years where the economy has finished negative consecutively its been about 3-4 years in a row. That's not typical though. When the market is down one year it rebounds positively. I don't have a big book of market numbers like my finance guy but I did find something to show. Even after the worst years in the US market it has rebounded significantly. The point is, although it absolutely sucks right now this is temporary so don't look at your portfolio I don’t know what’s going to happen for the remainder of 2022.

It wouldn’t surprise me if things got worse. It wouldn’t surprise me if things got better.
This might sound like a cop-out but I’m long humility right now because things are so confusing.
There’s nothing you can do about the losses we’ve already experienced. It’s a sunk cost at this point.
The important thing to remember is the lower stocks go the higher your expected returns are going out into the future.
Lower stock prices are a good thing for long-term investors.

Screenshot-2022-05-20-222418.png

A report last week noted water levels of the Mississippi river were so low the last few years that its affecting Cargo ports in Louisiana. Billions of dollars of goods come through those ports and without enough water its grounding the ships.

https://www.fox8live.com/2022/10/06/major-port-coast-guard-closely-monitor-mississippi-river-levels/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/weather/weather-rain-mississippi-river-severe-storms-wxn/index.html

People have been leaving the human sesspool known as Facebook/Meta in droves for other platforms. Not so much of the loom/doom of the economy but going all in on virtual reality and rebranding to Meta hasn't been successful. iOS privacy update, called App Tracking Transparency, undermined Facebook’s ability to target users with ads, costing the company billions and dealing with the continued fallout of the Cambridge Analytica isn't helping. Sorry for the topic post.

None of these were due to looming economy but their owners mismanaging their companies. Meta expanded too quickly and spent billions in their virtual reality. Musk was begging advertisers yesterday to stay. They're leaving because of his nutty actions in the past week since he took over. Random layoffs/rehires and political tweets when he said Twitter should be neutral. He then mocks fleeing users by tweeting a meme with Nazi soldier.

Since the end of October my retirement portfolio made over $130K back from being down half that.

The market just closed at the highest level ever 37000. It’s reacting to the fed saying they don’t see the need to raise interest rates any more as inflation is cooling to 3.1% They’ll slowly lower interest rates next year which is good news. Gas is down to 2020 levels with the US is producing more. This is lowering prices with shipping goods. Housing still sucks but part of the problem is wealthy companies buying up all the housing. They just introduced a bill to stop this. Consumer confidence is up also. Job growth is up again with unemployment down to 3.7 below 4% for 27 straight months. Unions are stronger getting double digit wage increases for nearly 900000 workers.

Things are looming the right direction.

If I posted a bunch of links or graphs it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m shocked people use eggs and feelings to fact check. People see what the want to see. Alright, one link. Oil production is up. Natural gas is up.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M

Indubitably!

Prices shot up on everything during Covid which affected the supply chain and workforce. Significant weather events and war doesn't help. Consumer habits dramatically changed and going back to a hybrid of what it was before the pandemic. Good news - oil is world commodity and is cheaper which should translate to shipping goods, food etc cheaper. The market is as strong as its ever been. Inflation is cooling finally. The Fed isn't raising interest rates any more which will ease interest rates. Hard to believe this all happened in just a 3-4 year time span.

Best advice is don't have a big "nut" in life. Don't owe anyone money or buy things on credit.

What this has to do with tacos, eggs or EM pins I don't know.

Agreed!