So you're going to ship a material amount of money to one of your friends who lives in Germany to hold it in a German bank account for you but the US is going to go tits up in the next 20 years. Interesting take.

And to answer your question, I have 0 experience in this and most people of this website won't. Go try and find a financial advisor or money manager who works with high net worth clients if you want an actual answer to this. But it's most likely not going to be worth your time and the holding costs for how much you want to hold.

Try Europac. Should be easy enough

I don't know how to convince you, but if capitalism falls apart in the USA, it falls apart everywhere.

You have some massive paranoia problem it seems, probably from watching American news, yet you still think that the probability of such an outcome is in the low single digits %? Does not compute. Seems you think its a certainty without wanting to sound more looney.

Basically all world currencies are fiat, and the USD loosing its 'reserve' status doesn't mean printing is no longer possible.

Also the Eurozone is full of its own problems. If you lived there with American style sensationalist media, you would think its all about to fall apart as well.

If I came on here in 2005 and said I thought something was out of whack in the US housing loan system, and that I was worried a crash might come which would be so severe that it could bring down the whole system unless the US stepped in with massive infusions of cash - how do you think it would have been received? I'd have been laughed at of course.

You are correct Zimbabwe can print money. But it doesn't work out as well for them. China doesn't backstop their inflation with its massive debt holdings in Zimbabwe dollars. The Zimbabwe dollar isn't tied to the price of a gallon of oil.

I think the probability of a recession is very likely. I think it's at least possible that it leads to an actual severe depression. If we do get a real depression, I think the probability things getting very very ugly in the US - like massive finger-pointing, scape-goating and probably violence - is likely. Where **** goes from there I have no idea. Hell I'm not even sure a recession doesn't lead to violence.

In the last depression the US outlawed owning gold. That seems pretty severe to me. How are they going to feel about people like me who "escaped" the US and aren't helping to rebuild the economy - but still have a bunch of money in US banks? Maybe they start finding some excuse to steal money from malcontents - immigrants first, then ex-pats. It is a national emergency after all.

All doomsayers are laughed at and for good reason. They end up with less money in the end on average. If you want to be one of these people then go ahead. I was hoping to get you out of this group.

You obviously don't understand the concept of EV. If you had acted on whatever fears prior to the crash in 2008, then you were one lucky bear. And only would you have truly 'won' had you reversed your bearishness, bought the bottom, and somehow lost the doomsayer part of your brain to prevent further -EV decisions. You are also ignoring all the many other times where the doomsayers were wrong and ended up losing significantly. One year ago is a prime example where loads of people were panic selling and ended up with significantly less wealth today.

Being old sucks, don't be poorer also. If the world experiences a <1% outcome that is truly world ending then I'll be happy to jump off a building and be done with it, but I sure wont change any investment decisions based on something so improbable.

What is far more probable imo is western governments will be up to their neck in debt/GDP, but Japan will get to be the guinea pig as its situation is far worse.


“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch

The premise of the question is basically, "If I had perfect forward knowledge about the future of the economy, what should I do?"

Because in your hypothetical situation, there are people who came on here in 2005... but also 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and so on. The fact that it is possible for some random conspiracy nut to strike it lucky doesn't mean it is meaningful or a lesson for everyone else.

Yes, someone will win the lottery. Everyone agrees on that. But that doesn't mean it is good for anyone to play the lottery - because we don't know who happened to get lucky until after everyone has made their bets, and because you fail to consider the survivorship bias of the premise of your point.

Come on Josem - I'm not predicting it will happen next year - just saying I think there's some chance **** might hit the fan in what's left of my lifetime. I'm 50, so 20 good years? 10 more hanging on?

If I can be diversified in which countries I keep my money and investment vehicles in w/o a ton of risk or hassle - I see no reason to do do.

suzzer99,

Other people in this thread are only going to offer advice in good faith which they think maximises your EV.

So apparently this isn't all that hard: https://transferwise.com/us/borderless/

It might be nice to have some cash in Euro and some in USD when I'm nomad-ing around - I can pick which has the better exchange rate.

Did I ever claim people were deliberately leading me astray?

You're starting to make less and less sense with each post.

Btw I knew the housing market was out of whack when I got instantly approved for a $600k loan. I was making $90k in time and had no money for a down payment. No problem - you can get a loan for that too - at a higher rate. Want a bigger house - no problem, it will just be a higher rate. Can't verify your info? You can get a "liar's loan" - at a higher rate of course.

Now what do you think the smart people on Wall St. would have told me if I asked them how is all this sustainable? "You just don't understand how risk allocation works, noob."

I actually put my money where my mouth was too and put my whole 401k in cash about 6 months before the crash, then left it there the whole way down. I didn't know how but I felt like there was a ton of froth in the market based on housing mania. I saw a lot of downside and not much upside. I realize I probably just got lucky. But it worked.

I got back in right at the bottom - based not on my hunch on a really smart bear I've followed since the dotcom bublle (Bill Fleckenstein). But instead of doing what he did and just put it all in MSFT, I dicked around and got scared and start messing with EFTs - thinking I was some kind of God market timer. Frittered away a big chunk of the gains I could have had.

You get no return on the balance, just to be clear - if you just wanted advice on a multi-currency bank account, then that's not really much of an investment question.

Suzzer just watch this until the endhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_aOERmUWdA

If this cant convince you of anything, then you deserve to have less money.

I am well aware of the concepts and don't think I'm a master market timer. I do however think that it's possible to protect yourself when a mania is obvious - which has happened twice in my lifetime. I knew dotcom was a bubble and I knew something was going on with housing. Bubbles are only obvious in retrospect is bullshit. It basically presumes you can't be smarter than the masses and the market is rational.

I don't think we're in a bubble now. But I've thought for a long time this run would end in one. I have a target of about DOW 35k mainly because of that stupid book. I know it makes no sense, but also I'd be doing pretty sweet if the market goes up another 25% from here, and hedging a little at my age would make sense.

Things are starting to feel a little frothy at the moment - which I thought might happen once we get closer to the election and Trump stops dumping and pumping. I would be a lot of money he's making money of his market-crashing tweets. He used to be a pumper-and-dumper. No reason he wouldn't try the opposite as president. But they need to get a lot frothier for a bubble. 25% from here in a short time frame should do it. Your boomer uncle will be asking you for stock tips again.

But it would also be nice to have something concrete to go on like "I know JDSU is not worth 8000x trailing earnings and CMGI is a joke" or "I know I shouldn't be approved for a $600k loan with no down payment" to go on, vs. just "stocks are really high".

But then again you can look at yield curves and P/E and stuff - which I tend to take with a grain of salt because I know I'm not smart enough to really parse that. If I have any edge it's being able to see the forest for the trees that the super smart guys are missing because they've convinced themselves this time things are different. So far we don't seem to have one of those catalysts. Maybe fascism? Who knows.

if you're such an elite market timer you should be worth over a billion dollars right now

Picking the Euro as your safe haven currency is a bit weird.

Also, what you should have done in 2005 is accumulate US Dollars to purchase US assets that would soon go on sale.

Also, also if 2/5ths of your current assets are not sufficient to maintain an acceptable lifestyle, then there really is no point to the exercise. Given that you aren't getting calls offering off-shore bank accounts, I imagine this is an important point.

suzzer,

My fake advice is to accumulate assets that aren't denominated in USD. Get some cash denominated in Euro, have your German friend buy some foreign bonds for you, buy some Bitcoin, gold etc.

But my real advice is to do as others have said: Invest your money in low cost index funds, stop watching sensationalist news, stop reading sensationalist articles, stop frantically venting (and therefore validating) your fears on the internet, take a few deep breaths and try to enjoy the present moment

suzzer99,

Maybe a low cost index fund in European (lol) equities?

Although if you think that the USA is unstable, then I can't imagine how you think that the Euro is stable. Presumably a big part of an American collapse would involve some sort of secessionist movement... in which case, flooding to EU seems somewhat odd, given the much stronger and more obvious movements to leave the EU.

I think what you are really asking is how best to diversify assets out of catastrophic events you see as scarily nonzero chance happening.

I think most are just telling you there's no point in worrying about that, because we'll all be dead and/or scrapping for food, water, and bullets.

Short of that, any proper retirement investing should cruise through a crash/depression with minimal turbulence.

If you don't even trust that, then you should probably talk to a person who deals with ultra high net worth individuals and see what they say. I'd imagine nobody does preservation of wealth better than those people and the people they manage.

In my unqualified opinion, I'd say you should invest in real estate outside the US, gold, BTC, and the stablest international bonds you can find? Some mix of that sounds like the right idea. If the US falls apart, then having a decent home in another country you expect to somehow stay stable at the same time seems like a idea worth considering. It can be a vacation home in the time no catastrophy hits...

question here - I'm opening a roth IRA but i'm living in vietnam and working here. My salary isn't enough to have to pay US taxes (under 100k). Can I still open a roth IRA, anyone know?

You cant contribute excluded income to a Roth.

Ok, that's what I'm finding out, thanks, but what I think I can do is still pay taxes on the paltry sum I'm making and contribute to the roth and it's a good deal. The thing with Vietnam is the labor contracts are all shady. I don't know how I'd prove my salary except through bank transactions in a foreign bank (which the IRS probably can get access to). I just don't want to be penalized in the future so I'll play it by the book.

Yeah if your income is low, then it can make sense to not take the foreign income exclusion and contribute to a roth.

You don't have to prove your salary either until they demand it. Unless you are flagged for something in their system, the chances of that happening are close to 0.

Cheers. I feel like they don't attack the little guy. Of course in 20 or 30 years with luck I won't be such a little guy, and hopefully they don't attack me then, but dealing with foreign governments and trying to prove things here would be not worth the effort I would think

If you find a major US brokerage willing to open a roth IRA account, I'd be surprised. Most of the big brokerages cracked down on mail forwarding to foreign countries. With the new KYC laws, I'd be pretty impressed if you opened a roth without a bunch of headaches and even more impressed if the broker allowed you to keep the account if they find out later on. There's also the hassle of setting up 2FA on a non-US-based phone number, or a US-based phone number on a foreign carrier.