Some interesting perspectives. A few things I think that are important to keep in mind. The first thing is we have never been in the position we are faced with before in history. It is not just the US that is in trouble, but most markets are proper up by credit. Also the 2008 crash was not the bottom of the market. It was simply a tremor to what we will soon face. I don’t mean that in a dooms day mentality. It doesn’t mean the end of man. It does mean that we will see conditions we haven’t seen before and 2008 is in no way a representation of what we will see. We never recovered from 2008. They have just been manipulating the markets. Their is not one market right now that is not manipulated to keep this house of cards up, which means when it goes the whole thing will likely come down, or we will experience major set back after major setback as different markets are corrected.
One of the main instabilies that main instabilities that affects the US is the Petro dollar. Of the Saudi’s begin to sell oil in another currency or sell off their like reserves to China the Petri dollar goes away and the value of the US dollar drops by a third instantly.
Although I agree that there is money to be made in a bottom market, not everyone is in the same place and those in a position to win will be fewer the more destruction we face. Yes a lot of our customers are wealthy but the wealthy need the middle class to support their wealth. They need people spending money and need a moving economy in order to turn assets into wealth. A 3 million dollar home is only worth 3 million dollars of someone is willing to pay 3 million for it. A severe enough collapse will effect the wealthy as well as the rich.
To be clear the point of the post was not to be a hopeless prespective or to be negative. The point was to be honest about what we very well could face and to be wise in preparation. Yes it doesn’t do any good to worry about what might happen, but it does do some good to prepare for what could be a strong possablity so that you can weather the storm. Most homes in the midwest have a tornado cellar for a reason, yet how many will ever be hit by one.
For me I built up my business slowly over many years by doing any job that came my way. A lot of my clients aren’t super rich. They are simply wise with their money and have some to spend. Because they are wise they often cut spending on things like window cleaning when things get tight. Over the last couple of years I have focused my attention on the larger more affluent homes and have built a good reputation among those circles. In not sure it would be enough to keep me going full time in a major financial crisis. I figure at the very least I may be ably to maintain an on going part time customer base and at the very least supliment any other income. I have tried over the last couple of years to get in a better personal position and although I have made progress it has been much slower than I would have like to see.
I often try to think about what things might look like so I can prepare, but there is just no way to know. I have wondered if window cleaning is a viable business in other countries that are much poorer than ours. Maybe that would give some indication as to what we could expect if we experience some major challenges.
Either way my trust is in God to provide but even God calls us to use wisdom.
