Will The Economy Be Collapsing Again, or What?
For a while we had a recession. Then we had a "recovery." Now, we're just sort of floating along in the Economic Maybe Zone. Just believe whatever you want. Are we all doomed to crash again?
Whereas just a few years ago the economy was so catastrophically terrible that you could safely assume all of the markets would go up, once the weak had all been killed and eaten, today that certainty no longer remains. The Dow and the S&P 500 have both risen back to levels not seen since 2008, before everything went to shit. That means that the predictable cushion is gone—that anything, once again, is possible. So: should you, the average schmuck, be pouring your money into the markets right now, or playing it safe?
Warren Buffett says: stocks will be rising more than anything in the long term. Invest!
Other, more negative analysts say: another crash is coming. Lock up your dollars!
Warren Buffett has good reasons. So do the doom-predictors. These USA Today "Money" section stories are causing us much cognitive dissonance today! So, what will the stock market do? Well, it will collapse again. I don't actually know if that's true.
All we know for sure is that actively managed mutual funds are a waste of money.
