Reasons For Optimism
With everything going on in the world, it is often difficult to believe that things continue to get better. But they do and here are a few articles I present as evidence.
First up is Scott Grannis's September 8 posting “Is this a great country or what?” In just four charts, taken from the Fed's second-quarter report, Mr. Grannis demonstrates that “economic conditions in the U.S. continue to improve, despite all the bad news.”
Below is one of the charts showing the inflation-adjusted net worth of U.S. households. When real household net worth increases by 3.6% in any given year, it hardly seems newsworthy. However, when you continue that progress over the course of 70 years, the consistent compounding amounts to a 12-fold increase. I strongly suggest you follow the link and check out his other three charts as well.
Next is Veronique de Rugy's September 13 essay “The Middle Class Is Prospering” in National Review. While it is arguably true that the middle class is shrinking, it is important to remember that the decline is the result of rising incomes. As noted in the article, “The share of US households making $100K+ [in inflation adjusted dollars] has increased by approximately 3X since 1967.”
... But Politics Have Never Been This Bad!
When I cite the above, a lot of investors will say something like, “That is great BUT the country is still going to hell. Today’s political landscape is so much worse than it used to be.” I don’t have a chart for this one but on August 25th, Karl Rove wrote a column for the WSJ titled America Is Often a Divided Nation. In there he quickly runs through some of the sordid highlights of American political history to make the case that the divisiveness of today’s hyper-partisan landscape is neither new nor extreme relative to what we’ve experienced in the past. His well-supported conclusion: “It’s bad today, but it’s been worse before, and it will be better ahead. Change is coming. We don’t know precisely when, but it’s coming. The better angels of our nature as Americans will emerge and win out.”
When it comes to writing about investments, the disclaimers are important. Past performance is not indicative of future returns, my opinions are not necessarily those of TSA Wealth Management and this is not intended to be personalized legal, accounting, or tax advice etc.
For additional disclaimers associated with TSA Wealth Management please visit https://tsawm.com/disclosure or find TSA Wealth Management's Form CRS at https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/323123