2024 08 05

“The cat’s on the roof again.” Vincennes, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s days like today that worry me about the future. Last night, I started seeing alerts about a huge market selloff in Japan. Sure enough, stocks around the world took a massive dump and made losses of historic nature. Sure, down days are normal, healthy even. Lower prices mean stocks are cheaper and younger people are better able to get in and enjoy larger returns. I get the logic and agree with it! What worries me isn’t the general up and down nature of stocks, it’s that we, in America, have decided to completely outsource our retirement funds to the stock market. Everything and everyone is now so reliant on the market to perform, and if it does not, for any number of reasons, many people will suffer later in life.

What’s that, you don’t want to work at McDonald’s into your eighties because the market is tanking and you can no longer afford to cover your grocery bill? Well, you better let us invade Iran to expand the friendly western economic markets! This country will eventually be forced to make drastic decisions out of financial necessity and we’ll gladly do it because we’re all tied into the same system, a system based on future growth and earnings in a world trending towards less growth and less stability. And our livelihood depends on it.

But what do I know? *heads to Schwab to buy more Apple stock because it’s down 6%* Oh wait, Schwab is down and I can’t access my funds. How reassuring!

-Clayton