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Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

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Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#31

Post by the-dude »

bungie4 wrote: post #23
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm lost. Could you be more specific about this supposed heist?

Mr. Buffet pledged 80% of estate to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with many, many other wealthy people for the betterment of mankind. By all accounts, The Gates Foundation is delivering on their promise by reducing child mortality, womens rights, life expectency, health care and education to the underprivileged of the world. Heist indeed. Sauce: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

> by reducing child mortality, womens rights, life expectency, health care and education to the underprivileged of the world.

That doesn't sound too good to me.

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#32

Post by lethologica »

chii wrote: post #30
lethologica wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Educate yourself. You don't need to know the intricacies of how markets operate, but a little financial understanding is, I believe, a must for everyone. Also, be aware that even when you do educate yourself and you do everything you think is in your power to 'safe guard' your nest egg, that there are are still a billion and one ways that it can all be wiped out tomorrow. Micro managing you're finances if you don't k…

so to sum it up, don't do anything, and hope? Because even if you attempt to educate yourself, it'd be like trying to learn to do your own surgery. Not impossible, but... What i want to really know is what people with a lot of money actually do - and when i say a lot, i meant a lot. networth in excess of 8-9 digits. What do they invest in? What diversification measures do they do? Which country? And finally, how they…

They usually pay other people to worry about it at that stage .

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#33

Post by AmericanChopper »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

You’re fine. If a crash happens tomorrow, in 20 years time it will have completely recovered. Read about investment horizons. Over that timescale, you’re not at the mercy of market cycles. Once you get a bit closer to retirement, that’s when you want to start minimising risks. 5-10 years out, you would start looking at fixed income assets and stuff like that. You don’t want to delay your retirement because your 401k had a single bad year. Until then, go nuts with high growth funds. It doesn’t matter if you have a -10% year if your investment is growing strongly on average over 20 years, you just don’t want that year to be the one where you’re looking to start cashing out.

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#34

Post by mathattack »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

Low fee broad market indices. Put as much in as you can every year. Don’t take a dime out until you retire.

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#35

Post by chosenbreed37 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #21
digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

If you want to diversify in a non correlated assets, you can put a part of your money from stocks into commodities, like gold/silver/Bitcoin (housing market is highly correlated with the stock market, so it's not a good diversification). All asset (and storage) types have their advantages / problems, you should read about it of course.

> All asset (and storage) types have their advantages / problems, you should read about it of course.

Am I right in thinking that gold/silver are widely thought to be inflation proof? So I wasn't so concerned about growth could I just park my money in gold?

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#36

Post by mooreds »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

Educate yourself. I like A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Are You A Stock Or A Bond, and Your Money Or Your Life.

Asset allocation is one of the few levers to control risk that you have. The more you have in safe assets (bonds and cash) the less likely to lose money in a downturn. Nothing's free, however, and that stability will cost you long term growth. Only you can figure out what level of risk you can love with (are you ok losing 10% during a downturn? 25%? 50%?). An advisor can help but you need to look in your heart of hearts and determine the number.

If you don't want to educate yourself or need a helping hand, get a fee based financial planner. Last I looked (years ago) was a couple thousand bucks to have a financial assessment. Ouch. But cheap compared to the 1% of assets the other kind of financial planners take annually. More on that here:

https://www.napfa.org/financial-planning/what-is-fee-only-ad...

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#37

Post by jumbopapa »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

Learn about it. I would recommend A Random Walk Down Wall Street [1] and The Boglehead's Guide to Investing [2]. They will give you a good primer, but in essence the best thing you can do it nothing at all. As you get older you'll want to make sure bonds take up a larger percentage of your portfolio, but really you're fine. The old sayings is "time in the market, not timing the market".

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-down-Wall-Street/dp/03933... [2] - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Lar...

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#38

Post by avn2109 »

lethologica wrote: post #7
digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

Educate yourself. You don't need to know the intricacies of how markets operate, but a little financial understanding is, I believe, a must for everyone. Also, be aware that even when you do educate yourself and you do everything you think is in your power to 'safe guard' your nest egg, that there are are still a billion and one ways that it can all be wiped out tomorrow. Micro managing you're finances if you don't k…

A bunch of people have given well intentioned but super vague answers to your question, such as "watch videos on khan academy" or "read newspapers."

These are Bad Answers and instead you just need to read and obey two books and two books only:

1) https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/...

2)https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Lar...

If you do this, it will prevent you from being any more screwed than anyone else, regardless of market conditions. You will also not become flamboyantly rich overnight in the way that Crypto speculators do.

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#39

Post by rubyskills »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

Best thing you can do is keep it in index funds for now. You're relying on dollar cost averaging to take care of the long term trends in the market. Downturns actually make you money as you're continuing to buy the better deals. If you pull out before you let your money buy these deals, you'll never receive the benefit when the market recovers, where you make the real money. Also, I read somewhere that the best trading days happen in a very short period of time. If you're not in the market during those days, you miss some significant gains.

Re: Maybe Warren Buffett Is Warning Us About Something

#40

Post by turk73 »

digitalsushi wrote: post #2

I have no idea how money works. I have a 401k, it's got more in it than the median 60 year old in the united states, and I'm 20 years from that. And I am terrified of how little I know about how it exists or survives. I read these articles and get a sense of overwhelming urgency that, without any explicit indication, I should do something with my nest egg to make it safer to survive a crash. And then I keep reading,…

You assume there is a workable strategy. But there's not, and that's the real problem. I don't want to retire "10 years from now" I want to retire as soon as humanly possible. Nothing supports that, however. There are no safe havens for wealth anymore because inflation destroys cash savings and thus pushes you into making risky bets on stocks and shitty bonds.

If you're not part of the in crowd, your savings will get cut in half every decade or so because they can't have you with actual wealth to challenge them, now can they? There is no strategy that gets you where you want to be: Without fear or pain.

So now that you understand that, what is your next move? Might I suggest a revolt?

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