Is there a hard threshold? Do high risk investments such as penny stocks qualify as gambling? Do low risk investments? Annuities? Bonds? CDs?
This comment got me wondering.
Is it more to do with the venue? Stock markets and real estate vs casinos and the lottery?
Were the MIT Blackjack Team gambling or investing?
Is this just another semantic hotdogs are sandwiches discussion or is there an agreed threshold?
I feel you have literally picked the single most unique example for markets not going up. You make it seem like the US’s market will need to experience the same thing eventually, and I don’t think most people would agree with that assertion. Japan’s economy is a very strange and unique case.
You make it seem like it didn’t already: The US market didn’t reach its 1929 peak again until 1954. 25 years is a long time to hold out on withdrawing your retirement investments.
Here’s two other modern markets:
The Athens Stock Exchange had peaks in the 2000’s that haven’t recovered.
Ukraine’s stock market has ceased operations since the invasion.
These events are rare, but not unheard of.
If BRICS takes hold, yea, we’ll see decades of decline then; even if unemployment is at 0%.
The loss of trust in the greenback, be that from consumer confidence or foreign countries moving on from Breckenridge (meaning the dollar is no longer the default global currency - so huge sell offs of the dollar, lowering demand =value plummets) due to our foreign policy will not be a happy time for Americans. Debts’ll come due, upon threat of physical war or sanction (which is just economic warfare). We could end up ceding land in the Pacific or elsewhere…and maintaining dual fleets, even one fleet, becomes a lot less likely.
More plausibly in my mind, America would declare war and use tactical nukes, and use them first, repeatedly and harshly, before it lets its rich get eaten…cuz the working class (<$1,000,000) has already lost their fat.
Nuking farmland or fish migrations could potentially avoid MAD but make no mistake, to the oligarchy in charge, war is the only chance they could avoid mutual assured destruction.
To the privileged, regression to the mean feels like oppression.
That’s a huge if. Part of the bonus of the US dollar is our consistency in paying back debts which the nations of BRICS haven’t shown themselves to be. Not to mention, you need a very strong reason to switch to other currencies. Hell, BRICS hasn’t even decided on a mutual currency, I believe, which means as of now, BRICS basically means going back to before the US was the world trade currency which is a huge step back.
So sure if BRICS completely gets their shit together and convinces a lot of the economy to join, that would cause problems for the US economy. Or also if Vietnam becomes a huge economy, and decides to Nuke the US, or also if aliens come and blow up the US, or if all americans decide to collectively commit suicide.
Point I’m making is your worry doesn’t seem like an imminent problem. It could, but it would be a slowly decreasing problem that hopefully the US deals with accordingly and in a way that doesn’t negatively affect people.