Investing and Politics
Who will have the greatest impact on your financial future? You or President-elect Trump? Now I know there are two groups in this country: one hates what they see going forward based on our election; and one loves it. What are the chances that somewhere in-between is the truth? What is the chance that you really don’t know how this is going to affect the future, much like the next earthquake, the next scientific breakthrough, the next technology boom, or the next war? Because of our biases we believe that the answer is obvious. But is it?
I believe that, what we do has the greatest impact on our future. How we live, our attitude, what we say, what we spend, and what we give away, are what impacts our financial future and our ability to achieve financial success and happiness. It seems in the last several months that we have heard many statements… at least I have from my clients, such as:
- “I can’t invest until two weeks after the election.”
- “Now that Trump has been elected, we should pull all of our money out of the market!”
- “Now that Trump has been elected, we should get more aggressive!”
- “I can’t make any decisions right now. We need to wait to see what happens.”
Are you guilty of making any statements that sound somewhat similar to these? When are we going to know the unknown of tomorrow? Because really what’s going to affect the market the most is what we don’t know today. There are thousands of people out there predicting the future as though they know! They say if this happens then that will happen, or if that happens then this will happen…but they don’t know! They are just talking about things that are unknown, unpredictable, and best not to worry about.
Yes politicians make lots of promises, but when they really get there, many are impossible and most are unkept. We really don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that your investments are best when they are formulated on facts that bring increased probability of success to your circumstance. There is little or no correlation to who is running the country and their policies to your financial success.
Sure, what President-elect Trump chooses to do will have some influence on the economy over the long-term, although this is debatable. What’s more significant is the timing of when a president enters office. They are either lucky to enter during a time of expansion, or unlucky to enter in a time of contraction. We cannot control the politicians. We cannot control hatred, misunderstanding, and the divisiveness of our country.
But what we can control is putting probability of success in your plan by taking actions that, more than likely, will increase your net worth, decrease your debt, decrease your debt to equity ratio, and increase your assets. We can take actions that help us spend less than we make, increase the probability that you will have an emergency fund, live on a prudent amount of your wealth, have conservative assets in a market downturn, and come close to being debt free. Because whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or Independent these things will help to maximize your financial future. Do you want to waste energy on things you can’t control, or things that bring the likelihood of success to you, the ones you love, and the life you dream of?
Let’s make our life great again!
Let’s live a great life by doing what puts probability of success on our side and what we can control. Stop ruining your life by worrying about things that we have no control over. This will not get better six months from now, or 6 years from now, if you let it dictate your happiness.
