Bull Market, Bear Market, dollar-cost-averaging, diversification…
I’d like to add one term to the lexicon — “BULL-oney”.

Americans have watched over 2 Trillion dollars in retirement funds and savings disappear in the last few weeks.  Poof!  And what are the “experts” telling you now?

“Don’t worry.  It will recover.  Just stay in for the long haul.”

Well, unfortunately if you’ve already been investing in the stock market for years, there might not be any other good choices.  Taking out your money now means you’re locking in all those losses without any chance of recovery.  But its time to reflect a little on the current state of investing.

Does it really make sense to lock away your money for 20,30, even 40 years and hope that when it comes time to retire the market will be “up”?  What happens if you already are retired and your stocks drop 50% over night?  And just because we’ve had a long peace-time prosperity that has driven the market up overall… doesn’t necessarily mean it will do that in the forseable future.

We have a ticking triple-time bomb with Social Security, Medicare and stock-market retirement funds.  When the baby boom generation begins to withdraw their money instead of put it away… how can stocks NOT continue to drop.  What happens as life expectancy continues to go up, and Social Security benefits have to keep getting paid?

I could go on, but the point is that there is no safe investment for long-term retirement.    The only real investments you can make are in assets with intrinsic value:  real estate, precious metals, businesses that generate cashflow etc.  Invest in a business that generates cashflow, and invest in learning skills to make money at any age (mind money, not physical labor!)

Work at paying off all your debts, even your house, and reduce your cashflow requirements.  And above all else, take heart that we have a God who cares for us and says so in his scriptures.  That no matter what happens to us, he promises us life with him if we believe and accept his gift of salvation.