Financial Crash (2022-25)

cosine said:
That's a fantastic point. Concrete construction in Mexico lasts for a while, and even in a dilapidated state, no one complains -- they just keep it going with frugal means, out of necessity. Americans expect everything to work perfectly.


Yeah, the guy I know paid $105k for a nice, but used van build. So he gets to live in a nice van instead of a truck bed, and a good portion of his "savings" go into paying off the van, which of course depreciates. He's also spent time, energy, and money maintaining it, and it's a Sprinter not a Toyota -- of course it's more expensive to maintain. So not as frugal as the Truck Firefighter, but he also can walk around and has a heater and a sink.

If he keeps the van working well and vans stay expensive, he'll still be able to sell it down the road(pun intended) for quite a bit as vehicles seem to be holding value better/inflating.

I agree, extended vanlife sounds miserable, and is why I've never done it. Wouldn't extended trucklife just be even worse?

I was fortunate enough to buy a house and have gone the "house hacking" method by renting out other rooms. Couldn't be happier with it, and it also helps create some actually affordable housing for my high-cost area. This helped me purchase my second, smaller place, and set me well on my way to financial independence.
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Yes, vans depreciate, real estate appreciates over time.
Also all these gas/diesel vans/motorhomes will likely drastically lose their value as electrical vehicles are being forced on people. Fuel is crazy expensive in California already, as a little preview of what's coming. Vans inflated quite a bit in 2020 for obvious reasons but what's coming next no one knows. Official RV values are always depreciating and that's the limit insurance covers or bank can loan. My RV was purchased at NADA ("blue book") value and I would not pay a dime over, nothing for some van conversion fad value.

If converted van is destroyed in accident or fire or stolen insurance will only pay for the van chassis portion, not the conversion portion, in most cases, because conversion can not be insured under RV policy unless its factory built.

Truck life isn't any more miserable than vanlife if you get a nice truck camper for it, these cost 20-30k+ 3 season (4-season I think will start from 45k) and should be insurable as factory built to safety standards. Truck can get into a lot more nature places/roads than typical van.

What you did with the house is the way, this is how my mother started, she ended up buying multiple homes in different states
 
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I know someone who is trying to sue insurance to cover their 90k Sprinter conversion, which was t-boned in a parking lot and totaled, throwing money at lawyers. Insurance would only pay 30k, which is what the chassis value is, they are suing for remaining 60k. Apparently, they were lead to believe entire thing was covered but good luck with that, no RV cert. 60k down the drain. Those are expensive toys
 
Blade Runner said:
Yes, the price trend will always be "up" because of, oh yeah, that thing called inflation. A lot of people conveniently forget this.

I think we've entered the 4-8 week bears bowed out now formerly contrarian bulls become FOMO bulls, and get crushed when 2024 begins.
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Seems likely. The S&P 500 P/E ratio is at 26. The last time pre-covid it was this high was January 2020 and before that was mid-2008.
 
jaguarcat said:
I had watched a part of the vid you posted.
There are numerous channels and vids by nomads, one would need multiple lifetimes to watch all of them. I had lived nomadic life for a very long time and know pretty much everything nomads can post.
Some of them try to make money on youtube while claiming to be well to do, but it's not true and they are desperate. It's hard to make real money off travel channel, especially if one is not a hot young chick.
This guy appears to be genuine and not glamorizing vanlife, some vanlife youtubers are fake and don't even live in their vans/trucks/RVs.
What he described was very stressful urban camping life simply not worth it. I only did it for nature travel staying in remote locations miles from anyone else, because of my very unique life circumstances most people do not have. He says he saved a bunch of money but these money would get eaten by inflation by now, cut in half, and should have been put into home equity instead.
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I think i'd likely want to use it for nature travel like you say.

From watching his videos I think he wanted to simply be in control of his finances enough that he wanted to create some breathing room for the future. His willingness alongside his work ethic to live this lifestyle is to be applauded, simply because most people don't save, let alone get ahead like he did.
 
jaguarcat said:
Yes, vans depreciate, real estate appreciates over time.
Also all these gas/diesel vans/motorhomes will likely drastically lose their value as electrical vehicles are being forced on people. Fuel is crazy expensive in California already, as a little preview of what's coming. Vans inflated quite a bit in 2020 for obvious reasons but what's coming next no one knows. Official RV values are always depreciating and that's the limit insurance covers or bank can loan. My RV was purchased at NADA ("blue book") value and I would not pay a dime over, nothing for some van conversion fad value.

If converted van is destroyed in accident or fire or stolen insurance will only pay for the van chassis portion, not the conversion portion, in most cases, because conversion can not be insured under RV policy unless its factory built.
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Yeah, being under-insured would suck. I have specific insurance for my short term rental, but it'd still be horrible if Airbnb guests ruined it.
jaguarcat said:
Truck life isn't any more miserable than vanlife if you get a nice truck camper for it, these cost 20-30k+ 3 season (4-season I think will start from 45k) and should be insurable as factory built to safety standards. Truck can get into a lot more nature places/roads than typical van.

What you did with the house is the way, this is how my mother started, she ended up buying multiple homes in different states
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I also know a guy who repairs Sprinter vans, he went with a Tundra with a pop-up camper because 1. Like you said, it's dramatically better to drive and 2. He fixes vans and charges people so much that he couldn't stand owning one!

That being said, the Sprinter build I'm familiar with is just nicer to be in. You can walk/move around way more.
 
Blade Runner said:
Yes, that is crazy. And only the 2019 base is wider, so it looks like a Q1 drop as we've said. I think the fact that it's unbelievable that we've come this far and are eating it, feeling terrible being a bear, means that actually we are very close to the capitulation, to be honest.
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I was talking with my friend who's a risk analyst at a major bank. His particular department is focused on looking at the automobile sector.

His take pretty much in line with what zero hedge is suggesting: they'll ease as much as they can going into the election.... But in 2025, after the election and reality hits, we are going to have some major issues.

I'm not sure I needed my MBA or his industry knowledge to piece that together, but it's interesting that folks in the Banking industry are very very well aware and yet don't seem to be putting enough pressure on the Biden admin to make smart fiscal policies.

Hope Trump can do something to stem the Trainwreck with Peter Navarro back in...
 
Get2choppaaa said:
I was talking with my friend who's a risk analyst at a major bank. His particular department is focused on looking at the automobile sector.

His take pretty much in line with what zero hedge is suggesting: they'll ease as much as they can going into the election.... But in 2025, after the election and reality hits, we are going to have some major issues.

I'm not sure I needed my MBA or his industry knowledge to piece that together, but it's interesting that folks in the Banking industry are very very well aware and yet don't seem to be putting enough pressure on the Biden admin to make smart fiscal policies.

Hope Trump can do something to stem the Trainwreck with Peter Navarro back in...
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Part of it is that rates have to be lower for the government debt rollovers.

What people don't know, even though it pretty much happens every time, is how low and how long does the market go down when this "easing" starts. So much for higher for longer, I guess ... who knows.
 
A street level observation:
I was talking with a store clerk the other day when buying a small gift. I asked her how things were going a week out from Christmas. She said pretty slow but she also works next door and she's never seen a year with so few retail customers. She said people are mostly just worried about rent.

I'm debt free and going to do ok this year, but this is my worst year financially in well over a decade. Income is down, but expenses are way up. And I'm extremely frugal, typically saving well over half my paycheck. Most of the expenses are not descretionary (property taxes, food costs, auto costs, etc.). There is no choice but to pay the increasing prices, and there's not much to cut out. I'm mostly just stacking bills for an overseas relocation already.
 
Blade Runner said:
Have you noticed the exuberance this "bull market" is gaining? I'm seeing a ton of articles and positions that indicate we're past the contrarians of the bears to now firmly established contrarian of bulls phase. The Greed Meter is quite high ...
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A lot of people genuinely believe in permanent bull market, I was just reminded of that yesterday, again, someone told me "there is nowhere else to put all the money into so the market will keep growing". They believe that the Fed will bail out the market no matter what, because of all the invested 401k being the retirement savings (and older generations are big and powerful). So even though they expect some drawdowns they believe it all would recover quickly and would keep going. That is the mentality.
 
jaguarcat said:
A lot of people genuinely believe in permanent bull market, I was just reminded of that yesterday, again, someone told me "there is nowhere else to put all the money into so the market will keep growing". They believe that the Fed will bail out the market no matter what, because of all the invested 401k being the retirement savings (and older generations are big and powerful). So even though they expect some drawdowns they believe it all would recover quickly and would keep going. That is the mentality.
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It's gotta be a banking issue, a geopolitical event, something that acts as an excuse to sell (more) like the 2020 draw down ... soon.
 
Blade Runner said:
It's gotta be a banking issue, a geopolitical event, something that acts as an excuse to sell (more) like the 2020 draw down ... soon.
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I wonder how to find out what's next. 2020 threw a curveball but there were signs in advance, such as Gates sponsored "pandemic" simulation and WEF risks publications, where they were hinting stuff. WEF seems to be sitting queter now not wanting to draw much attention to itself. But yield curve dynamics is pointing to near recession and drawdown coming soon
 
jaguarcat said:
A lot of people genuinely believe in permanent bull market, I was just reminded of that yesterday, again, someone told me "there is nowhere else to put all the money into so the market will keep growing". They believe that the Fed will bail out the market no matter what, because of all the invested 401k being the retirement savings (and older generations are big and powerful). So even though they expect some drawdowns they believe it all would recover quickly and would keep going. That is the mentality.
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Those kind of statements used to bother me, and I believed the free market models of supply and demand and all that.

But that's kind of what the stock market is nowadays, just an ever expanding nebula based more on an expanding money supply than profits or losses.
It long ago stopped being what it was designed for, a way to reward the owners of a profitable business.

cummulative-inflation.jpg


Just look no further than Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). These were designed to be a way to create and sell shares of a new company, allowing investors to provide the money needed to bring an idea to reality. For example, providing the funds for an inventor to take a working concept, design, manufacturer, advertise, and sell a finished product based on that idea, and then returning a portion of the sales to those investors.

IPOs now are typically issued for large corporations that long ago funded their business model, and are merely a cash grab by greedy capitalists.

A good example would be Uber (that's a laughably simple concept, as all you are doing is automating the dispatch operator and creating a mobile app to notify drivers to pick up passengers at the given address). Instead of issuing an IPO to design and test the app, Uber operated for 9 years before asking for investor money, which it no longer needed. It even created the "UberEats" food delivery service 4 years before its IPO, and had already expanded to most markets.

Owning a diversified stock portfolio is essentially just owning a stable currency, outside of outlier gains and losses.

On another note, I heard a story that the average American needs an additional $11,400 to have his same standard of living that he had in 2021. Personally, my income is *down* by about that much. I don't know anyone making that today.
 
Rax Moscow said:
Those kind of statements used to bother me, and I believed the free market models of supply and demand and all that.

But that's kind of what the stock market is nowadays, just an ever expanding nebula based more on an expanding money supply than profits or losses.
It long ago stopped being what it was designed for, a way to reward the owners of a profitable business.

cummulative-inflation.jpg
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By the way, since the chart shows inflection point in inflation around early 1970s, here is a curious site with tons of charts showing big changes that happened since 1971. Definitely was a time of fundamental change in America.


The time globalist corporatocracy had won.

Rax Moscow said:
Owning a diversified stock portfolio is essentially just owning a stable currency, outside of outlier gains and losses.
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This worked so far on a scale of decades hold time, when someone can hold for 3-4 decades, or, on shorter scale works during secular bull markets (such as since 2008) - during secular bear stocks can lose a lot against inflation, secular bear markets last 10-20 years usually. People's trust in the government bailing out 401ks might get broken with long near permanent bear market, who knows, like in Japan.
 
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jaguarcat said:
No wonder they want to focus on "rebuilding trust" now ;)
But is this signaling that there will be nothing drastic pulled in 2024 and will be a quiet year?
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Rebuilding trust assumes they had trust in the first place. That's my issue. These WEF people are crazy. Nobody signed up for this?

And was always my issue with our former PM.....who I gladly voted out. Good riddance.
Why would someone think that if you've never been elected?


I just know 2024 won't be normal. But obviously can't predict the future.
Things won't be the same, but as long as there's enough good people paying attention, people around the world gonna be alright with God's blessing. We will find a way through.
 
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