Just got off a 1-hour webinar with Efficient Market Advisors, the investment firm my broker uses for evaluating the markets.
As expected, he said "Everything will be fine, no need to panic here. In fact, if you have any money left now would be a good time to give it to me."
He put up a chart of projections for the GDP in 2020. The total he displayed did not agree with the figures on display. When I pointed this out, he said something about "factor weighting" and "forward going projections" but obviously he just made a mistake. He added some figures he should have subtracted, and overestimated according to his own figures by 4.5%.
When a couple of us asked if all these multi-trillion $ stimuli were going to affect the long-term health of T-bills as the international currency-of-choice, he brushed off our concerns as "unimaginable."
I asked what effect a Trump 2nd term would have on the economy, but the seminar "ran out of time" before he could answer.
I'll be frank. I'm worried.
The stock market is not the real economy. Publicly-traded companies are not the ones being hardest hit by this worldwide disruption of supply chains. 30 or 40% unemployment for a few months will not lead to a V-shaped recovery. It'll look more like 1929-1933, where it takes a decade or more (1945 and a huge national project like a World War) to restart the economy.
The guy said the economy was in strong shape when the coronavirus hit -- low unemployment, some wage gain, favorable balance sheets. What he did not address, unfortunately, is that America has permanently lost our manufacturing base. Globalization has taken those jobs overseas, to countries with lower costs of production. America is left with a "service economy" which means we can't BUILD our way out of a depression.
We are at the mercies of our third-world partners, and if our dollar weakens we'll be right there with them on the bottom of the scrap heap. Pretty soon another economy will emerge as better run, better designed, more stable, stronger future, and our Little Richie Rich past will be permanently behind us.
Especially when Trump gets re-elected. Because he's ruined every organization he's ever become involved in.
In WWII we shipped millions of GIs overseas, and their wives and girlfriends took over for them in the factories. After the war, all these GIs wanted to have babies and buy houses and cars and washing machines.
21st Century warfare does not involve infantrymen.
It is fought with robots and drones and cyberwarfare. Most all of this will be manufactured elsewhere.
There will be no returning soldiers, no baby boom, no durable goods explosion. Technology, old or new, most likely will not be there to pull us out of the Trump Depression.
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