I'm thinking it all depends on what folks are tied to; where they put their nest eggs (or where their fund managers put their nest eggs).
Folks who have collective retirement accounts (unions, etc.) could get screwed, massively. What little we've got left is all in 401Ks and whole life policies. Great when times were good (saw some excellent returns on the NW Mutual acccount), but years of medical bills depleted our savings account.
I know too many people who saw their retirement strategy blow up in their face. So far, ours hasn't...
In TX? Probably not too bad.
TX has a couple of long term advantages, a relatively young population, jobs for the most part, housing prices that are reasonable and a good standard of living.
Other places though? I’m much less sanguine. I’m thinking we see anywhere from a 30 to 50 percent decline in the overall standard of living.
I had an argument with a professor friend of mine who was insisting that the baby boomer generation would outlive their parents, and I said, that was doubtful. I would expect them to live much less longer than their parents, on average, simply because of unhealthy lifestyles.
I unfortunately was right about that with my father who died at 53. His mom and dad are still around and all of his great grandparents lived for a long time.
What can people do to protect themselves? Deleverage wherever possible. Don’t own anything you don’t need and pay off your debts.
The second thing is to ‘invest’ in disaster preparation. Things that will become necessary in the event of trouble. I myself haven’t gotten to this point yet, but I have all my bills paid.
It doesn’t have to be big things, just some simple things. Having enough food on hand in the case of an emergency. Having a backup method to cook food in the case that power goes out. Little things like having buckets and stuff for water, basic tools.
It doesn’t have to cost a huge amount, but look around and ask yourself how you would survive say 2 weeks without power. Anything that would be difficult make sure you’ve got some of it.
At the very least none of your preparations will be wasted and will come in handy in lesser emergencies.
As for investment, I’m not the best person to ask as I am sitting out the Obama presidency. Bonds are doing well right now. Some stocks are still worthwhile, ie, whatever things people are going to buy and need in the future.
The worst thing for TX would be a power outage in summer, people will be dying and you would need a way to get by without air conditioning.
As you can see, I’m not really an optimist. I’m sure there are others who would laugh at my prediction of a 30 to 50 percent drop in the standard of living.