(06-04-2016, 10:50 PM)Galen Wrote: There are other things to invest in. Private equity ventures can be profitable but you have to figure out which one. Depending on the particular Fed and government stupidity will determine what is profitable and for how long.
That's like investing in individual stocks. A good stock picker will always make money. I am not a good stock picker. There are real estate and dividend strategy that can generation reliable returns, but they require a good deal of work, like a job. Working at a job is a better bet for most people unless you really like that sort of thing. But if that's so, then I would expect one to have a job in that field and make a good deal of money.
I'm lazy and run a very passive strategy after losing money 15 years ago trying to get clever. Basically I buy the stock index. Over the long run (a century) stocks go up at a pretty consistent clip. So there is a bias towards a positive return. If you look at it a bit more closely you will see that the market does most of this rise over half the time. In real terms the market made a significant advance from 1982 to 2000, after which it hasn't done as well. This is normal. When you are in one of these rising trends, you just buy and hold, so half of the time its really easy.
When you are in one of the other periods, like since 2000, it's harder. But right now the market is very high and I have no interest in doing any buying, having sold out. So that's easy, I am just sitting on my money waiting. We are bound to have a recession soon, and then the index will go down, it always does. So I will buy it then, just like last time. After that it will be years before I have to do anything else.