Are You Ready for a Financial Roller Coaster

[Castaigne]

The economy has been suboptimal lately, with China trying to lowkey stimulate its economy, while the rest of the world is looking at it under a microscope, periodically screaming and chewing on their brand new August "Stock Trader Tie of the Month." Meanwhile in the West the Eurozone is still tripping over itself with German energy prices evaporating and Greece still being 10 feet under ground in a hole of debt. In America Janet Yellen is now crying softly while pushing back a rise in interest rates back another 5 or 6 months at the earliest.

Basically the economy is in a state fairly similar to the collapse of Lehman Brothers but smaller in nature. However if anything it's more worrisome because every major country has already played out their entire book of tricks over the course of the last recession. To quote Stephen King (the economist, not the author):
"We will carry on sailing across the ocean in a ship with a serious shortage of lifeboats."

What's your thoughts? Are you ready for anything? Are you ready for a moderate decline? Is this the cost of emotions in the market? Or is this simply a transition to a longer-view of the market place, where small seemingly inconsequential events can lead to these short term pains, despite maintaining a healthy outlook over the medium and long term?

 

[Esper]

Unless something apocalyptic happens I think I'll be okay. I have a job in education, and when times are tough lots of people try to move from work to school so I'm not worried about being made redundant if the global economy tanks.

But aside from myself, it's a little worrisome, but I think it won't be as bad as the Great Recession Of '08. As long as people (and by people, I mean stock traders) don't all panic at every little jump and dip in the market we'll probably just all be fine in the long term. All the big economies seem okay, even China seems like it's just having an upset stomach.

 

[donavannj]

"Stock markets have predicted 10 of the last 3 recessions." - I heard this exact sentence on NPR from an economist on Monday. Other indicators in the USA outside of the stock market are more indicative of a stronger economy than the indicators in China, and believe it or not, the USA's economy is not anywhere near as export/import dependent as some would have you think, and certainly not to the extent that China is. The stock markets have always been very skittish and react to even the smallest things, and they're even more skittish and reactionary now.

I think the US would be fine. If it happens, it definitely won't be as bad and as slow of a recovery as the recovery from this last one was, since that one was both a credit and a housing bubble bursting nearly simultaneously. Those ones tend to be especially painful and slow to recover from.

On a personal level, I would not be ready for a serious crash given my current debt level.

 

[Neo Emolga]

I'm not ready.

I'm nervous about the dollar becoming worthless because of crippling national debt and the potential of hyperinflation. I've been trying to save for a down payment on a house, and if everything I have were to be wiped out and I'd have to start over, I would definitely be frustrated and discouraged.

 

[Her]

I'm practically broke as it is and as my career will be in teaching I'm so blasé about being poor tbh

 

[Livewire]

The debt, while bad, has shrunk as of late as spending is down, the deficit has shrunk, etc

It was basically just a correction, the market will do this every once and awhile after a peaking which occurred in the spring. If it were a real crisis like say, 1987, 2007-8, etc., The Dow Jones Industrial would be seeing a drop of over 3,000+ points, like what happened in 1987. The price of oil and China's recent economic moves caused the fluctuations, once those stabilize, things will be, for all intents and purposes, ok in the short term. We'll see how the dropping price of oil and china's moves play out in the long term.

I mean, I don't really have any investments per say, but I do have a 401k and some things of that nature so it would be crucial for me to make sure those are looked after, I guess. It depends on what happens with the market - the the subprime mortgage crisis obviously hit homeowners and the middle class pretty hard. It comes down to what goes wrong and in what part of the market.

 

[Spacy]

I'm kinda worried about this. Prices could go all wonky and that would make things a lot more complicated.