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Ask HN: How are you preparing yourself for a recession?

155 points by samrohn 7y ago

We know the recession is going to happen sooner or later. Are you concerned about this effecting your profession. How are you preparing yourself personally, professionally and financially.

all2 7y ago
I'd love to say I'm setting aside cash to buy real-estate, tangible goods, and promising stocks. But I'm not. I'm at the tail end of my school 'career' and I'm praying I graduate. I'm continually coming to terms with the fact that I'm not nearly as smart as some of the kids I'm in classes with. Maybe it has to do with habits?
- merkaloid 7y ago
  i was nowhere near the smartest kid in my school or my uni class but Im more successful than them by miles. Don't let it discourage you.
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  It's not always about the "smarts". You'll graduate. I crawled across the graduation stage. I had a low GPA. I barely qualified with my in-major GPA. Hell, not long after that I went to federal prison. I'm still here and I'm still an engineer. No one has ever even asked to see my transcript. You will graduate. Just focus on what you need to do and once it's all over you will be just like the rest of us.
- csa 7y ago
  > I'm continually coming to terms with the fact that I'm not nearly as smart as some of the kids I'm in classes with. Good social skills, especially being able to build and maintain a healthy professional network, will advance one’s career much more than purely being smart. Ideally, a given person will have both, but the social skills seem to reap much larger dividends than pure intelligence in my experience.
christiansakai 7y ago
I'm a little bit concerned, but just a little bit. I'm primarily a software engineer, but in the past I've worked other white collar jobs and also blue collar odd jobs (sushi-man, deli-man, laundry, dry cleaning) and I'm used to hard labor, waking up early, etc. I think I'm pretty adaptable. Financially, I don't have that much savings because I use the money to help family members. But again, I'm not concerned about myself. I'm more concerned about them.
- jaybeeayyy 7y ago
  same boat. I've made it through a lot of tough events in my life and have worked at a bunch of different jobs...never had much of savings due to life events anyway. Also have never really expected to retire so having my minuscule 401k lose money isn't really hurting me.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    I just have absolutely atrocious financial habits, so losing job atm would probably be game over for me. I'm not overly worried about it, as I dont really see that happening, and if it does, there isnt much I can do but roll with it
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      Recession or not, you should probably begin doing the needful to solidify your financial situation.
angarg12 7y ago
I know this is a non-answer, but if you have healthy financial habits, you won't need specific preparation for a recession. I believe you can't time the market so 'preparing for a recession' is a moot point. Instead set financial goals that align with your risk tolerance and that make you comfortable. That being said, the advice that I would give is just standard stuff. I think some sources do a much better job at explaining those so I'll let others answer. Big strokes is just the usual stuff: prepare a emergency fund, contribute up to your employer match (or more), set up a budget, etc. One important point is, if you invest in the market, just keep investing, no matter what others do.
- badfrog 7y ago
  Indeed. I've been earning FANG-ish money for the past ~10 years and saving/investing more than half of my take-home pay. That means my expenses are low enough that I'd do fine if I have to take a lower-paying job and that I have enough savings to live for quite a while if I can't find any job.
- mr_tristan 7y ago
  I was just going to say "I'm just getting off my ass and tightening up my financial habits". For those of you like me, who like spreadsheets but don't know exactly where to start, I can recommend Tiller Money: https://tillerhq.com https://tillerhq.com. Sometimes the best place to start is just "knowing where you stand". But there's lots of great tools for personal finance. Pick one and hop to it. But there's no secret magic there, and I'm not even sure I'm doing anything different now that I shouldn't have already been doing 2 years ago. I may not have spent so much money... but that's a me problem not the "result of a recession" problem.
  - whycombagator 7y ago
    > I can recommend Tiller Money: https://tillerhq.com https://tillerhq.com Looks interesting. Appears to be sign in with Google only, which is a shame.
    - 7y ago
znpy 7y ago
If you know that you have to prepare for the incoming recession it's probably too late to do it.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  It depends on how far out you're looking. If you started preparing when the yield curve inverted over a year ago[0], you've had plenty of time to prepare. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-03/u-s-yield-curve-just-inverted-that-s-huge https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-03/u-s-yi...
DrNuke 7y ago
It will hit hard and mostly people struggling already from the 2008 crisis, which is only going to further social unrest and claims to fight inequalities, rightly so. As for the people following this website, it should strengthen their resolutions to innovate at local level, possibly implementing solutions already validated in comparable environments and markets (e.g. here in Italy, more smart working like in the Northern Europe and more cultural business like in the UK).
- dlsso 7y ago
  Could you elaborate on what you mean by smart working and cultural businesses?
  - DrNuke 7y ago
    Ok, here they come imho: 1- smart working aimed at increasing productivity, because a lot of time is spent at office but the output is too low and / or mediocre quality to stand up at global level in the 2020s; 2- cultural business as artistic heritage, creative industries and beautiful landscapes, which really need better overall standards to compete against Spain, France and the Balkans, especially in Southern Italy.
- dvdhnt 7y ago
  It's funny - not in the "haha" way. I don't want others to suffer; who really does? But no one willfully gives up power. We're so very close to being technically capable in terms of eliminating poverty or feeding all people. Hopefully, the upcoming recession will push over the edge towards total solidarity.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > But no one willfully gives up power. And they don't want to work hard to pay for others that don't work, either. If feeding the people is the goal, we can already do that. Trivially in first world countries, but also world wide. It's getting everybody a high living standard that's expensive and hard.
fortran77 7y ago
I'm learning Rust. It helps to have a recession-proof skill. And there's a lot of software that will be re-written in Rust over the next decade to make the world safer in general.
- Dansvidania 7y ago
  I so hope you are right! :D
- rmcpherson 7y ago
  Learning rust is great (I am too) but I'm skeptical that it is in any way a recession-proof skill. If anything, recessions cause corporations to become more conservative, including technically, favoring the older "boring" languages with a long track record.
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  If you need a recession-proof skill, I believe you should be learning Python or Java.
  - stOneskull 7y ago
    catching pythons and making cups of java
- synthc 7y ago
  Rewrites are only done if there is plenty of money going around. During a recession many projects go in maintenance mode, so Java/C#/Javascript is a safer bet. Rust is more fun though....
- voldacar 7y ago
  I'm learning adra and idris just to be extra safe.
- decebalus1 7y ago
  > It helps to have a recession-proof skill. Leetcoding is a much more recession-proof skill than Rust.
decebalus1 7y ago
Was working professionally through the last one and I'd say: a) don't retire b) if big corps are your thing, B2B big corps fare way better than consumer oriented ones so if you need to decide between two job offers, pick the one with the least chance of layoffs. There are no guarantees. c) have cash standby. You should have this regardless of the state of the market. If you need cash and a recession is coming, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I learned to have at least one year of expenses in my checking account after witnessing the layoffs in 2008-2009 and then the trigger happy RIFs which followed well through the 2010's. d) learn or be willing to learn or pivot your skills
- ianbicking 7y ago
  I wonder if there's a good way to distinguish different B2B businesses that are more or less effected. For instance, my dad used to be a mechanical engineer designing large construction equipment. Maybe 10% of equipment was replaced a year, so if there was a demand for 10% more equipment one year then they'd have 2x sales. But if there was a 10% decline in demand, then they'd have 0 sales, the broken equipment was acceptable attrition. So... that industry really sucked. But if the businesses have to pay for your services just to keep running, then it won't be too bad. So server sales might go up and down a lot, but AWS demand will be much smoother.
JohnFen 7y ago
I fully expect a recession (and a pretty severe one), but I'm not doing anything special to prepare for it. The financial and professional habits I already have are what I would do in preparation anyway. Primarily, this boils down to being (largely) debt-free, having a large cash reserve, and ensuring that my skillset is up-to-date so that I can get work or start a business in almost any climate.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  How big of a cash reserve do you recommend?
  - Jtsummers 7y ago
    The cash reserve should depend on your particular situation. True cash (e-fund) should probably be 3-6 months of your expenses (that is, you should be able to live on it, not party on it, but live on it). More if you're in an expensive area with a home you can't easily get rid of, or think you'll have difficulty getting a new job or income source. I have a very stable job, I have about 3 months reserve. I want more, but that's what I feel I need. It's more to cover things like emergency expenses for medical or other causes than job loss. Other money is invested and that's what I would touch if I ever needed to, but hope not to. I have a friend who spent years in the video game industry, he has generally kept close to a year in reserve. He got laid off a lot over the years as game projects wound down and they didn't need the staff. That gave him the ability to continue living without any real fear or discomfort. If you're particularly risk averse but in a stable spot, you may want to push towards that higher number too.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I don't recommend any amount -- how much is "right" is too individual. Personally, I have two years pay in reserve. It's earmarked for funding a startup I'm planning, but could quickly and easily become emergency funds.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
make sure you're someplace with a few quarters of runway and make yourself too valuable to lay off
Accujack 7y ago
It's going to affect all professions somewhat. Personally, a long time ago I realized that stuff happens, and you have to both deal with an unpredictable world and change. You can't really prepare except in general terms, so you mostly make the best of the situation you're in. Keep an eye on where you want to go with your life, and do your best to make it happen, but accept that it may not and there may not be anything you can do about that. Professionally, my skills will be in demand one way or another no matter what happens. Whether I'm cheaper to hire than the competition will depend on what I'm willing to do to earn a paycheck at various levels. I've always wanted to optimize that so I can spend more time living and less working, so I'm planning to cut my costs long term and live cheaper if I can. Financially... there's not much I can start doing now that will insulate me against a recession other than the above. I don't have long term investments except in myself and my skills, and I don't expect to ever be able to retire. I will probably change careers at some point, however. In a recession economy I will still be able to find a job, just maybe not at the pay level I'd like or in an area I want to work in, but I'll survive. If your hope is that you can prepare and thus insulate yourself from the effects of a bad economy... it's only partly true.
davidw 7y ago
I'm much more worried about the virus than a recession. The latter... is going to suck, for a lot of people, but with the right policies in place, we can get through it. The virus is simply going to kill a lot of people if it's not checked.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pengaru 7y ago
  Not trying to be cold-hearted about it, but if the virus ultimately kills off a lot of sick/edlerly people, wouldn't the aftermath of that be a boon for the economy?
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    I guess, it depends. Some states are paying a huge share of their budget to pensions. If the virus can kill all those people, those states would have more money to invest in the younger individuals and their needs which will help the economy later. It would probably also improve the living quality in overpopulated areas due to poor people being more likely to be infected and having less resources to survive. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/15/every-states-pension-crisis-ranked/40302439/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/15/every-states...
  - davidw 7y ago
    > boon for the economy Maybe, but at best this means... buying a few more things, taking a few more trips. Whereas > elderly people, Is my mom and dad.
    - pengaru 7y ago
      > Maybe, but at best this means... buying a few more things, taking a few more trips. I can think of some better effects than that. How about a bunch of California homes coming on the market and collecting property taxes proportional to their current value for the first time in decades?
rayshan 7y ago
I'm in the camp of more preparedness is better, and actions need to be taken. For me it's about studying recession histories, stay calm, keep investing. Sharing what I posted in another thread: my look into the 2008 Great Recession was very helpful with my pattern matching. 98 out of 100 stocks lost money during that recession, but most of them did super well during the longest recovery period in U.S. history. Even AIG made people a bunch of money. Here's the full dataset of 1363 mid cap + stocks that traded during the 2008 recession, and their performances: https://shan.io/writing/learnings-from-the-2008-great-recession/ https://shan.io/writing/learnings-from-the-2008-great-recess...
scarface74 7y ago
Keeping my network strong, keeping my skills in tune with the local market, and keeping my fixed expenses low. Companies were still hiring contractors during the last recession, but they could be more picky and you had to be able to hit the ground running. As far as benefits, my wife works for the state education department doing an “essential service”. We can switch to her insurance if necessary.
gao8a 7y ago
Try to stay away from news and news aggregators :(
- apineda 7y ago
  This is very very important.
wyxuan 7y ago
Snapping up gold in what I see as the inevitable return of inflation. The US is aggressively deficit spending in the boom times and in order to keep up this unsustainable spending in the bust times, the gov't will have no choice but to juice inflation.
- hwatkins 7y ago
  I agree, there is really no palatable option than for the government than to run inflation high, much higher than the 2% target. The next downturn will see some extraordinary measures, maybe it’s already starting with the 10-year treasury at .5%. Really the only other option is a deflationary bust and nobody’s political career will survive that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
UncleOxidant 7y ago
I always try to have at least a year's worth of living expenses in my emergency fund. And that's in cash not in stocks or index funds - a lot of people on places like reddit criticize this ("You're missing out on much higher returns you'd get if you had it in the market!") but on days (weeks) like this I'm glad it's in cash. Beyond that, I tend to live by this maxim: "When times are good prepare for them to be bad. When times are bad prepare for them to be good." So the question to ask soon is how will you prepare for the post-recession recovery? Asking this will keep you from despairing. Yes, this recession could last a while and be quite nasty, but it won't last forever.
- tootie 7y ago
  But "you're missing out on higher returns" is true. Unless you stashed all your savings in stocks for the first time two weeks ago, you'd probably still be better off having your money invested. We've lost a lot of the gains over the past ten years, but we've still kept most of them.
  - UncleOxidant 7y ago
    Sure, but the old "you can't time the market" maxim goes both ways. How would I have known to get my emergency fund out at exactly the right time? Remember, this is my emergency fund. I've got other investment money earmarked for investing. But for emergencies it's cash in the bank. That way I'm not having to pull money out of the market when the market is down. And it's when the market is down that you're more likely to lose your job, for example.
    - gowld 7y ago
      The point is that even pulling out at the worst possible time is still better than having never been in it.
      - UncleOxidant 7y ago
        Again: This is my emergency fund. This is my "the shit has hit the fan and it's all gone to hell" (like with a global pandemic, for example) fund. I'm not gonna gamble with the emergency fund. You may. I do not. We have no idea how bad this could get. As I mentioned above, I have other money that I do invest in the market, but I keep a year's worth of expenses in cash (edit: and some in iBonds, but most of that was put in years ago when the yields were higher.)
thrwaway69 7y ago
My dad is taking all the low interest business/housing loans before some of the banks grinds to the ground. Buying poor shares expected to bounce back. That's about it, I guess.
Der_Einzige 7y ago
It's happening now. Today is "black monday". I've got broad market puts (SPY) as well as puts on Square which are literally printing me money right now. If puts are consistently making money, than you're likely to be laid off in the next few months. I consider market shorts to be a form of insurance for this reason. If I lose my investment, than it means I keep my job. If my investment moons, than I'm about to lose my job.
- senordevnyc 7y ago
  Why Square?
  - Der_Einzige 7y ago
    Only company that was up on the first day of market panic so the puts were super cheap. Ended up printing me money today though :)
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Stability is good. Think twice about joining the next hot startup. If VC freezes up startups will run out of money quickly. Don’t take on debt. I haven’t experienced it myself but from what I have observed it’s a bad time to graduate from school once a recession hits. You won’t find a decent job and when things get better companies will hire shiny new grads and the grads from the years before will be left behind.
markvdb 7y ago
We bought a ridiculously cheap place in the countryside with over 2 hectares (5 US non-SI units) of land in my significant other's native country. Holiday house, place to meet friends _and_ dirt cheap insurance against many pitch black swans.
- yumraj 7y ago
  just curious, which country?
  - nerpderp82 7y ago
    Moldova
  - markvdb 7y ago
    .lv
alistairSH 7y ago
Nothing new or different. Keep a 6-month cash reserve, save for retirement, live within our means, and hope for the best. We have plenty of monthly expenses we can cut if needed, but won't until forced to do so. Beyond that, anything else feels like panicking.
achenatx 7y ago
We have been preparing my professional services company for recession for the last year or two. Key steps 1) carry no "real" debt, build cash reserves. 2) focus on profitability over growth. Typically driving growth means hiring sales/marketing in advance of the growth and spending profit to do it. Adding new services staff requires carrying about 90 days of the employee costs due to non billing the first month, and the 60-90 days until we receive cash from their first billings. Focusing on profit means raising prices, shedding overhead, getting long term contracts, driving efficiencies. 3) Focus on recession resistant industries. 4) Focus on acquiring more local businesses to reduce travel overhead required to clients. 5) no long term purchasing contracts 6) maximize credit line. Renew in advance of recession. During recessions banks kill lines of credit. As we start to get into a recession we will max out our line and then move the cash to another bank. Personally 1) Shed leveraged real estate assets, they are very hard to liquidate during a recession 2) Reduce debt usage 3) increase lines of credit 4) build 2 years of cash reserves (min of 6 months during normal times). Lots of money is made during recessions, you need ready cash to take advantage. 5) reduce spending now
- shostack 7y ago
  >"Focus on recession resistant industries." How have you approached identifying these?
  - hello_moto 7y ago
    Self-help in any field. Self-help => be better, be productive, learn fast Self-help => religion Self-help => make money online, from home Self-help => investing in "tough time".
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    Think about the point of market entry for a given product or service. Electricity? Pretty recession proof most likely. Toilet paper and nappies? Going to need those any time regardless of what's going on in the economy. Going to the movies? Can always say no and entertain yourself otherwise. Got into a car accident and need repairs? Going to happen regardless of whether it's a recession or not. I might only choose to do the minimum and not splurge but I'm still going to have to spend the money. Etc.
bravoetch 7y ago
I've been preparing for it since 2008 when my business was effectively killed. Anyone that felt 2008 has been expecting this. I saved, I split my eggs into many baskets, I made a spreadsheet.
- apineda 7y ago
  Mind sharing which baskets or type of baskets?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
outside1234 7y ago
Save extra money - my experience from the dot com crash and financial crash is that you should assume you are going to need 6 months of runway and so build up an extra rainy day fund that you will have when it hits. For me, this means deferring big purchases etc. until this is built up again. Note, this is in addition to your retirement, which you DO NOT WANT TO SPEND during the recession, since the stock market will have crashed then and you will be spending premium dollars there that you want invested for the recovery.
jotm 7y ago
No debt, enough savings, a house with a lot of land out in the boonies, a willingness to do any job. The 2008 recession did affect me, but I managed. Will manage this time, too. As long as you can learn and adapt, nothing's a problem.
bluGill 7y ago
Not really. I have a good emergency fund - something every good financial guru has been preaching since before I was born. Beyond that, so long as I have my job I'll keep living. If I lose my job - it won't be the first time - I'll just cut my expenses and in the worst case I can flip burgers for something to live on until this blows over.
Gusen 7y ago
So you are telling us the Dow Jones is down 6,000 in the last week because of a sickness with a death rate of 2.3%...are you sure it could not be something else? Global stock markets have lost $6 trillion in value in six days. It possibly because Soros, Putin, and others are moving money out of the US so that it cannot be taken in lawsuits resulting from their involvement in the story below. Unless of course you believe it is because of COVID19 aka Coronavirus, a sickness with a 2.3% death rate. See below: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720... Attorney General Barr is not resigning; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller,Pelosi,Schiff, & Nadler: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. Supreme Court Justice Alito & FBI Deputy Director Wray also on board. See latest updates "Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 2O2O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency. 176 page PDF [last update: March|8|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... Previously reported: \Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 915+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty! See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O. \\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on 8 Mar 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills 12 boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on the 17th Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, New York on the 17Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5th Jan'19 at 17:39 for billion$ in bribes:. OINoire wvvk erwol vk. 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at 20 minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff who starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 tkmklte mwb, btermobrpm https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 176 pg PDF [last updated: MAR|8|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...
helen___keller 7y ago
I'm thinking of moving a couple silly side projects off EC2 to a spare home server to save $10/mo Eating out less, cooking at home with family instead Sitting on almost a year's salary in cash pay off major debt, but I finished that a couple years back. If you have a mortgage, it's about to be a great time to refinance the way bond yields are looking. The big one though, trying to work up the resolve to put to bed either my netflix subscription or my hulu subscription. Probably hulu. Haven't pulled the trigger yet.
- nerpderp82 7y ago
  The cultural and intellectual purchases are for me, the point of existence. So while tightening up the necessary and utilitarian aspects of life, I think we should not put ourselves under austerity. For instance, skipping three restaurant meals can be exchanged for an amazing home cooked meal, with top of the line ingredients and drinks, while being less than the cost of a single restaurant meal. Have a friend over as well, we don't have to cut off access to whole world. Don't trade the restaurant meal and hulu for a package of top ramen and 4chan. No one benefits.
- whatsmyusername 7y ago
  Good excuse to see if you can dockerize them on fargate (if they're scheduled tasks) or put them in s3/cloudfront (if they're static). I spend $1.50 a month on AWS. I made everything I had fit one of those two patterns.
ipnon 7y ago
As long as law and order doesn't dissolve I won't change anything. If anything I would have more dynamic behavior in a bull market. I may be delaying a job switch soon because my current employment is in a stable sector.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
swyx 7y ago
I went through a few scenarios with a developer lens here: https://www.swyx.io/writing/coronavirus-recession/ https://www.swyx.io/writing/coronavirus-recession/ TLDR: - If you make buying decisions (e.g. running a company or a department): think about how you can turn fixed cost into variable cost. If you were kinda half remote anyway, maybe go full remote or swap the office for a coworking space subscription. Hire contractors instead of full-time. Buy SaaS services instead of build internally. Focus on conversion and retention rather than inorganic user acquisition. - If you are a freelancer or agency: Think ahead to how your clients could be affected - you may need to aggressively grow your funnel while also planning for more downtime between work. - If you are an employee: You can't do much about your options or 401k. But recognize that you are doubly long the economy in terms of both your stock compensation and your job (and real estate in affected states). - If you work at a startup that has a cash burn necessitating future fundraising, be aware that this can become very very relevant to you if the funds don't materialize, through no fault of the founders. Think through second order effects - the funds may not materialize not just because VCs are less willing to part with cash, but also because the startup itself may fail to meet targets because of the broader economic environment.
anonuser123456 7y ago
2000 puts on SPY @210, 5/10. Everything in cash/treasuries before the market crumbled. This was eminently predictable from a payoff perspective. The market lagged the info coming out of China for a long time.
_bxg1 7y ago
For a couple years now I've kept the vast majority of my savings in investments (Betterment) to keep them from depreciating, and because I can withdraw them in an emergency given 3 days' notice. Obviously we're entering a season where that's to be avoided. So I'll probably start redirecting my surplus income to my regular savings account for a while just to give myself an extra buffer. Not withdrawing from the market, mind you, just taking a break from depositing into it.
phendrenad2 7y ago
By trying to find a job in tech again so I can start saving up an emergency fund. Otherwise I'll have to move to a lower COL region.
toohotatopic 7y ago
I believe that there won't be a real recession until globalization and especially the position between China and the West is settled. No side will be willing to slow down. As a consequence, there will be full demand for whoever is willing to get something done. However, there will be countries that will lose contact to the state of art in some areas. As a consequence, I am sorting my belongings to be able to move freely should that happen to my niche. In the still not so unlikely event of a recession, I hope that I can use that opportunity to start something new when rent and wages are cheap and governments try to stimulate the market.
eqdw 7y ago
I am prepared by keeping 20 grand cash on hand. I'm a foreigner on a work permit. I'll be fine _financially_ in a recession but if I get laid off suddenly my legal residency is threatened, and I need to have an emergency fund to deal with any fallout from that
amithedumbest 7y ago
Maybe I am the dumbest. The official world gouvernance plan for this time is/was(?) to freeze paying dividends; debt-repayment, interest, ... To accomplish the commanded view, the companys will stop given quarterly reports to the share market and start to give half-yearly reports... yearly... telling us: "We do this for your customer satisfaction" ?!
alpineidyll3 7y ago
I work for a hedge fund that inverses the market. I'm mostly buying properties offshore, and trying not to get divorced.
- defen 7y ago
  Getting divorced during a recession is the worst. The recession takes half your money, your spouse takes half of what's left, and the lawyers take half of what's left of what's left. So you end up with about 12.5% of what you started with.
  - jesterson 7y ago
    And that's a very optimistic calculation
  - alpineidyll3 7y ago
    Why is a market crash worse than a divorce? You lose half your stuff and your wife is still there! (jk tho, everything is good at home and I'm #teamvirus.)
zackmorris 7y ago
My recession started around this time last year due to some health issues I wasn't aware of, causing the most severe burnout I've ever had, which led to a falling out with my job. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt: * Don't count on contracting or remote work as a fallback. I've been trying my luck at it without success. The last time I did it was 5 years ago but it's totally saturated now, with most of the clients going through upwork.com and freelancer.com with 10-50 applications per gig. Go see for yourself under common searches like PHP or React. * The jobs really will all dry up. Go on something like indeed.com right now and see how many there are. Now imagine the same scenario after everyone has cut their workforce by 10-50% like after the dot bomb in 2000 or the housing bubble popping in 2008. Your selection may change from software developer to driving a delivery truck so it's good to have something you can fall back on. In my case it's moving furniture, but, at 42 I'm getting too old to do it. There will probably always be work in warehouses and restaurants though, like in the old ITT tech commercial. * Assume that any possessions other than big ticket items like a home or car are only worth 10% of their value. You can get 25% at a pawn shop generally, but not after a recession when everything gets dumped on the market in triplicate. So all of the consumer electronics in your home are probably worth less than $1000 and won’t sustain you for long even if you sell all of them. * Find your poorest friends or relatives right now and ask them how they get by. This is a good time to learn about donating plasma, collecting unemployment insurance, signing up for food stamps, etc. You’ll be able to make about $300-600 per month through these sorts of tools, but it will take all of your time. The US no longer has an operational social safety net (compared to healthy economies in, say, Europe) so the psychological toll of poverty has a way of locking people into its cycle by paying just barely enough to keep you in a state of slow decline. Best to avoid that by arming yourself with knowledge and knowing your rights. * Consider getting involved in politics. The problems looming in this next recession are severe and exacerbated by the fact that no real legislation happened to correct the original causes of the 2008 great recession. Expect there to be no cash or credit available. Millions of people will be calling for reforms and there could be ways to help in causes like a new version of Occupy Wall Street. Assume that politicians are asleep at the wheel on this so any help from them will either not come or be too little too late. We’ll have to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps again. This will be the third severe recession I’ve gone through since I graduated from college in 1999. Unfortunately my brain has adapted for survival instead of contributing to society at the level I had hoped for. I’m planning on the next recession lasting at least 3 years, starting around the time of the election. If it starts by summer, then Trump will almost certainly lose, so in the meantime we can count on an influx of capital from the private sector to keep us afloat. But next winter could be quite grim. Try to have enough money on hand to make rent until spring, roughly $3-6,000 for the average American. Note that the bottom half of the country has no savings, so there’s nothing they can really do to hedge against what’s coming.
mothsonasloth 7y ago
Savings Financial prudence A good stock of bare essentials Ensure my car and house is well maintained (no costly surprises) Make sure I am demonstrating and showing value in my place of work.
yathrowawaywn 7y ago
After my last startup failed 5 years ago, I planned to buy my first house somewhere in 2021, hoping that by then some crisis would happen to lower house prices and to give me some time to pile up a bit less than 400k$. I don't want to spend more than that on a house even if I had more money, I don't like mortgages and I had no idea in which country I wanted to live, so renting was a convenient option. I had to decide whether to put it in indexes or to save cash in tax free saving accounts. I went with the saving accounts so I'm sitting on cash. I often half regretted not going with indexes but having 5 years of time before settling down wasn't enough time to risk it. If I lose my job I'll start eating into my savings and get a smaller house / delay the stable house plan. The good side of being laid off, would be spending more time with my sons.
unstatusthequo 7y ago
Trading options that reflect market pullback and volatility. VIX being one method in short term. Trading put vertical options on SPY as another.
OrgNet 7y ago
Anyone think the housing market will also crash at the next recession?
RickJWagner 7y ago
I have studied asset allocation (per Bogleheads.org) and understand my comfort zone. Recessions are inevitable. I hope I'm ready, I feel like I am.
person_of_color 7y ago
Putting my USD in an 2.63% Indian FCNR(B) account
muzani 7y ago
There will always be jobs. Just less unnecessary ones, more jobs revolving around saving money. Some people are getting rich off a recession, so people will still spend on luxury jets and wagyu steak. Advertising will still be hot - companies will need money, so FB, Google will still do well. Anything that saves money will do well. Anything that raises efficiency and doing more with less manpower will do well. My wife sells cheap lasagna and her business is absolutely booming now, especially since things like KFC has become a luxury. It's also a good time to hold on to cash, gold, and possibly crypto if you expect deflation.
james_s_tayler 7y ago
Well... Preparing for the recession is something you start doing 10 years before the recession, not 10 weeks before the recession. It's just good habits constantly.
icedchai 7y ago
I have 2 years of living expenses in cash. Hoping for a nice vacation from the industry...
badrabbit 7y ago
What recession? A 8% loss in DJIA is not a recession. 1987 had bigger losses and no recession for example. 2012 had similary terrible oil prices and losses. Why is everyone so eager to jump on the panic train. Both on corona,this,Iran crisis,etc... The panic is more dangerous than the event,let us try to be level headed without being naive.
- orasis 7y ago
  Preparation != Panic
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    Buying toilet paper to last a few weeks is preparing,a few months is panic
mister_hn 7y ago
just buy so much dip as you can
EnderMB 7y ago
I'm going to try and remove any kind of political talk from this as I can. To be honest, with Brexit looming and uncertainty around a possible election, I've spent the last year preparing myself for a recession. Over the last few years I've noticed a few businesses in Bristol contract their operations back to the capital, and salaries for software engineers overall have dropped, so I've largely been preparing for what I thought was the worst-case scenario: 1. A bad Brexit, lots of uncertainty, job losses, etc. 2. Increase in price of essential goods. We have a cupboard full of long-life essentials to last a few weeks, so we definitely won't starve. We're lucky enough to have enough room to store things in bulk, so we don't need to panic buy - and quite frankly I don't see a point in buying a ton of stuff I might not need when there are loads of people that will definitely need it. 3. A quick access fund with enough money to last me and my wife a few months, if needed. 4. In the long-term, increasing my skills in case I need to find a new job in short notice. Many of these steps will help for Coronavirus, but a concern of ours is what our "worst-case scenario" looks like with a Pandemic AND Brexit.
Trias11 7y ago
- Bought condo outside of USA for cash with renter already in place - bringing ~$1k/mo - Sold vested Co shares - not at the top of the market but 25% ago - before crash - and bought place in NV with much lower cost of living - moving out of CA soon. - Some cash saved that with frugal living could keep us going for a year or so with no issues.
askmeanyting 7y ago
Plant a vegtable garden! Learn to make your own kombucha, just kidding but learn to grow onions. People will kill each other over neccessaties like onions, matches and deoderant.

155 points by samrohn 7y ago

We know the recession is going to happen sooner or later. Are you concerned about this effecting your profession. How are you preparing yourself personally, professionally and financially.

all2 7y ago

I'd love to say I'm setting aside cash to buy real-estate, tangible goods, and promising stocks. But I'm not. I'm at the tail end of my school 'career' and I'm praying I graduate. I'm continually coming to terms with the fact that I'm not nearly as smart as some of the kids I'm in classes with. Maybe it has to do with habits?

merkaloid 7y ago
i was nowhere near the smartest kid in my school or my uni class but Im more successful than them by miles. Don't let it discourage you.
rwmurrayVT 7y ago
It's not always about the "smarts". You'll graduate. I crawled across the graduation stage. I had a low GPA. I barely qualified with my in-major GPA. Hell, not long after that I went to federal prison. I'm still here and I'm still an engineer. No one has ever even asked to see my transcript. You will graduate. Just focus on what you need to do and once it's all over you will be just like the rest of us.
csa 7y ago
> I'm continually coming to terms with the fact that I'm not nearly as smart as some of the kids I'm in classes with. Good social skills, especially being able to build and maintain a healthy professional network, will advance one’s career much more than purely being smart. Ideally, a given person will have both, but the social skills seem to reap much larger dividends than pure intelligence in my experience.

christiansakai 7y ago

I'm a little bit concerned, but just a little bit. I'm primarily a software engineer, but in the past I've worked other white collar jobs and also blue collar odd jobs (sushi-man, deli-man, laundry, dry cleaning) and I'm used to hard labor, waking up early, etc. I think I'm pretty adaptable. Financially, I don't have that much savings because I use the money to help family members. But again, I'm not concerned about myself. I'm more concerned about them.

jaybeeayyy 7y ago
same boat. I've made it through a lot of tough events in my life and have worked at a bunch of different jobs...never had much of savings due to life events anyway. Also have never really expected to retire so having my minuscule 401k lose money isn't really hurting me.
- non-entity 7y ago
  I just have absolutely atrocious financial habits, so losing job atm would probably be game over for me. I'm not overly worried about it, as I dont really see that happening, and if it does, there isnt much I can do but roll with it
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    Recession or not, you should probably begin doing the needful to solidify your financial situation.

angarg12 7y ago

I know this is a non-answer, but if you have healthy financial habits, you won't need specific preparation for a recession. I believe you can't time the market so 'preparing for a recession' is a moot point. Instead set financial goals that align with your risk tolerance and that make you comfortable. That being said, the advice that I would give is just standard stuff. I think some sources do a much better job at explaining those so I'll let others answer. Big strokes is just the usual stuff: prepare a emergency fund, contribute up to your employer match (or more), set up a budget, etc. One important point is, if you invest in the market, just keep investing, no matter what others do.

badfrog 7y ago
Indeed. I've been earning FANG-ish money for the past ~10 years and saving/investing more than half of my take-home pay. That means my expenses are low enough that I'd do fine if I have to take a lower-paying job and that I have enough savings to live for quite a while if I can't find any job.
mr_tristan 7y ago
I was just going to say "I'm just getting off my ass and tightening up my financial habits". For those of you like me, who like spreadsheets but don't know exactly where to start, I can recommend Tiller Money: https://tillerhq.com https://tillerhq.com. Sometimes the best place to start is just "knowing where you stand". But there's lots of great tools for personal finance. Pick one and hop to it. But there's no secret magic there, and I'm not even sure I'm doing anything different now that I shouldn't have already been doing 2 years ago. I may not have spent so much money... but that's a me problem not the "result of a recession" problem.
- whycombagator 7y ago
  > I can recommend Tiller Money: https://tillerhq.com https://tillerhq.com Looks interesting. Appears to be sign in with Google only, which is a shame.
  - 7y ago

znpy 7y ago

If you know that you have to prepare for the incoming recession it's probably too late to do it.

theandrewbailey 7y ago
It depends on how far out you're looking. If you started preparing when the yield curve inverted over a year ago[0], you've had plenty of time to prepare. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-03/u-s-yield-curve-just-inverted-that-s-huge https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-03/u-s-yi...

DrNuke 7y ago

It will hit hard and mostly people struggling already from the 2008 crisis, which is only going to further social unrest and claims to fight inequalities, rightly so. As for the people following this website, it should strengthen their resolutions to innovate at local level, possibly implementing solutions already validated in comparable environments and markets (e.g. here in Italy, more smart working like in the Northern Europe and more cultural business like in the UK).

dlsso 7y ago
Could you elaborate on what you mean by smart working and cultural businesses?
- DrNuke 7y ago
  Ok, here they come imho: 1- smart working aimed at increasing productivity, because a lot of time is spent at office but the output is too low and / or mediocre quality to stand up at global level in the 2020s; 2- cultural business as artistic heritage, creative industries and beautiful landscapes, which really need better overall standards to compete against Spain, France and the Balkans, especially in Southern Italy.
dvdhnt 7y ago
It's funny - not in the "haha" way. I don't want others to suffer; who really does? But no one willfully gives up power. We're so very close to being technically capable in terms of eliminating poverty or feeding all people. Hopefully, the upcoming recession will push over the edge towards total solidarity.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 7y ago
  > But no one willfully gives up power. And they don't want to work hard to pay for others that don't work, either. If feeding the people is the goal, we can already do that. Trivially in first world countries, but also world wide. It's getting everybody a high living standard that's expensive and hard.

fortran77 7y ago

I'm learning Rust. It helps to have a recession-proof skill. And there's a lot of software that will be re-written in Rust over the next decade to make the world safer in general.

Dansvidania 7y ago
I so hope you are right! :D
rmcpherson 7y ago
Learning rust is great (I am too) but I'm skeptical that it is in any way a recession-proof skill. If anything, recessions cause corporations to become more conservative, including technically, favoring the older "boring" languages with a long track record.
probably_wrong 7y ago
If you need a recession-proof skill, I believe you should be learning Python or Java.
- stOneskull 7y ago
  catching pythons and making cups of java
synthc 7y ago
Rewrites are only done if there is plenty of money going around. During a recession many projects go in maintenance mode, so Java/C#/Javascript is a safer bet. Rust is more fun though....
voldacar 7y ago
I'm learning adra and idris just to be extra safe.
decebalus1 7y ago
> It helps to have a recession-proof skill. Leetcoding is a much more recession-proof skill than Rust.

decebalus1 7y ago

Was working professionally through the last one and I'd say: a) don't retire b) if big corps are your thing, B2B big corps fare way better than consumer oriented ones so if you need to decide between two job offers, pick the one with the least chance of layoffs. There are no guarantees. c) have cash standby. You should have this regardless of the state of the market. If you need cash and a recession is coming, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I learned to have at least one year of expenses in my checking account after witnessing the layoffs in 2008-2009 and then the trigger happy RIFs which followed well through the 2010's. d) learn or be willing to learn or pivot your skills

ianbicking 7y ago
I wonder if there's a good way to distinguish different B2B businesses that are more or less effected. For instance, my dad used to be a mechanical engineer designing large construction equipment. Maybe 10% of equipment was replaced a year, so if there was a demand for 10% more equipment one year then they'd have 2x sales. But if there was a 10% decline in demand, then they'd have 0 sales, the broken equipment was acceptable attrition. So... that industry really sucked. But if the businesses have to pay for your services just to keep running, then it won't be too bad. So server sales might go up and down a lot, but AWS demand will be much smoother.

JohnFen 7y ago

I fully expect a recession (and a pretty severe one), but I'm not doing anything special to prepare for it. The financial and professional habits I already have are what I would do in preparation anyway. Primarily, this boils down to being (largely) debt-free, having a large cash reserve, and ensuring that my skillset is up-to-date so that I can get work or start a business in almost any climate.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
How big of a cash reserve do you recommend?
- Jtsummers 7y ago
  The cash reserve should depend on your particular situation. True cash (e-fund) should probably be 3-6 months of your expenses (that is, you should be able to live on it, not party on it, but live on it). More if you're in an expensive area with a home you can't easily get rid of, or think you'll have difficulty getting a new job or income source. I have a very stable job, I have about 3 months reserve. I want more, but that's what I feel I need. It's more to cover things like emergency expenses for medical or other causes than job loss. Other money is invested and that's what I would touch if I ever needed to, but hope not to. I have a friend who spent years in the video game industry, he has generally kept close to a year in reserve. He got laid off a lot over the years as game projects wound down and they didn't need the staff. That gave him the ability to continue living without any real fear or discomfort. If you're particularly risk averse but in a stable spot, you may want to push towards that higher number too.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I don't recommend any amount -- how much is "right" is too individual. Personally, I have two years pay in reserve. It's earmarked for funding a startup I'm planning, but could quickly and easily become emergency funds.

unlinked_dll 7y ago

make sure you're someplace with a few quarters of runway and make yourself too valuable to lay off

Accujack 7y ago

It's going to affect all professions somewhat. Personally, a long time ago I realized that stuff happens, and you have to both deal with an unpredictable world and change. You can't really prepare except in general terms, so you mostly make the best of the situation you're in. Keep an eye on where you want to go with your life, and do your best to make it happen, but accept that it may not and there may not be anything you can do about that. Professionally, my skills will be in demand one way or another no matter what happens. Whether I'm cheaper to hire than the competition will depend on what I'm willing to do to earn a paycheck at various levels. I've always wanted to optimize that so I can spend more time living and less working, so I'm planning to cut my costs long term and live cheaper if I can. Financially... there's not much I can start doing now that will insulate me against a recession other than the above. I don't have long term investments except in myself and my skills, and I don't expect to ever be able to retire. I will probably change careers at some point, however. In a recession economy I will still be able to find a job, just maybe not at the pay level I'd like or in an area I want to work in, but I'll survive. If your hope is that you can prepare and thus insulate yourself from the effects of a bad economy... it's only partly true.

davidw 7y ago

I'm much more worried about the virus than a recession. The latter... is going to suck, for a lot of people, but with the right policies in place, we can get through it. The virus is simply going to kill a lot of people if it's not checked.

deleted 7y ago
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pengaru 7y ago
Not trying to be cold-hearted about it, but if the virus ultimately kills off a lot of sick/edlerly people, wouldn't the aftermath of that be a boon for the economy?
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  I guess, it depends. Some states are paying a huge share of their budget to pensions. If the virus can kill all those people, those states would have more money to invest in the younger individuals and their needs which will help the economy later. It would probably also improve the living quality in overpopulated areas due to poor people being more likely to be infected and having less resources to survive. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/15/every-states-pension-crisis-ranked/40302439/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/15/every-states...
- davidw 7y ago
  > boon for the economy Maybe, but at best this means... buying a few more things, taking a few more trips. Whereas > elderly people, Is my mom and dad.
  - pengaru 7y ago
    > Maybe, but at best this means... buying a few more things, taking a few more trips. I can think of some better effects than that. How about a bunch of California homes coming on the market and collecting property taxes proportional to their current value for the first time in decades?

rayshan 7y ago

I'm in the camp of more preparedness is better, and actions need to be taken. For me it's about studying recession histories, stay calm, keep investing. Sharing what I posted in another thread: my look into the 2008 Great Recession was very helpful with my pattern matching. 98 out of 100 stocks lost money during that recession, but most of them did super well during the longest recovery period in U.S. history. Even AIG made people a bunch of money. Here's the full dataset of 1363 mid cap + stocks that traded during the 2008 recession, and their performances: https://shan.io/writing/learnings-from-the-2008-great-recession/ https://shan.io/writing/learnings-from-the-2008-great-recess...

scarface74 7y ago

Keeping my network strong, keeping my skills in tune with the local market, and keeping my fixed expenses low. Companies were still hiring contractors during the last recession, but they could be more picky and you had to be able to hit the ground running. As far as benefits, my wife works for the state education department doing an “essential service”. We can switch to her insurance if necessary.

gao8a 7y ago

Try to stay away from news and news aggregators :(

apineda 7y ago
This is very very important.

wyxuan 7y ago

Snapping up gold in what I see as the inevitable return of inflation. The US is aggressively deficit spending in the boom times and in order to keep up this unsustainable spending in the bust times, the gov't will have no choice but to juice inflation.

hwatkins 7y ago
I agree, there is really no palatable option than for the government than to run inflation high, much higher than the 2% target. The next downturn will see some extraordinary measures, maybe it’s already starting with the 10-year treasury at .5%. Really the only other option is a deflationary bust and nobody’s political career will survive that.
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UncleOxidant 7y ago

I always try to have at least a year's worth of living expenses in my emergency fund. And that's in cash not in stocks or index funds - a lot of people on places like reddit criticize this ("You're missing out on much higher returns you'd get if you had it in the market!") but on days (weeks) like this I'm glad it's in cash. Beyond that, I tend to live by this maxim: "When times are good prepare for them to be bad. When times are bad prepare for them to be good." So the question to ask soon is how will you prepare for the post-recession recovery? Asking this will keep you from despairing. Yes, this recession could last a while and be quite nasty, but it won't last forever.

tootie 7y ago
But "you're missing out on higher returns" is true. Unless you stashed all your savings in stocks for the first time two weeks ago, you'd probably still be better off having your money invested. We've lost a lot of the gains over the past ten years, but we've still kept most of them.
- UncleOxidant 7y ago
  Sure, but the old "you can't time the market" maxim goes both ways. How would I have known to get my emergency fund out at exactly the right time? Remember, this is my emergency fund. I've got other investment money earmarked for investing. But for emergencies it's cash in the bank. That way I'm not having to pull money out of the market when the market is down. And it's when the market is down that you're more likely to lose your job, for example.
  - gowld 7y ago
    The point is that even pulling out at the worst possible time is still better than having never been in it.
    - UncleOxidant 7y ago
      Again: This is my emergency fund. This is my "the shit has hit the fan and it's all gone to hell" (like with a global pandemic, for example) fund. I'm not gonna gamble with the emergency fund. You may. I do not. We have no idea how bad this could get. As I mentioned above, I have other money that I do invest in the market, but I keep a year's worth of expenses in cash (edit: and some in iBonds, but most of that was put in years ago when the yields were higher.)

thrwaway69 7y ago

My dad is taking all the low interest business/housing loans before some of the banks grinds to the ground. Buying poor shares expected to bounce back. That's about it, I guess.

Der_Einzige 7y ago

It's happening now. Today is "black monday". I've got broad market puts (SPY) as well as puts on Square which are literally printing me money right now. If puts are consistently making money, than you're likely to be laid off in the next few months. I consider market shorts to be a form of insurance for this reason. If I lose my investment, than it means I keep my job. If my investment moons, than I'm about to lose my job.

senordevnyc 7y ago
Why Square?
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  Only company that was up on the first day of market panic so the puts were super cheap. Ended up printing me money today though :)

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Stability is good. Think twice about joining the next hot startup. If VC freezes up startups will run out of money quickly. Don’t take on debt. I haven’t experienced it myself but from what I have observed it’s a bad time to graduate from school once a recession hits. You won’t find a decent job and when things get better companies will hire shiny new grads and the grads from the years before will be left behind.

markvdb 7y ago

We bought a ridiculously cheap place in the countryside with over 2 hectares (5 US non-SI units) of land in my significant other's native country. Holiday house, place to meet friends _and_ dirt cheap insurance against many pitch black swans.

yumraj 7y ago
just curious, which country?
- nerpderp82 7y ago
  Moldova
- markvdb 7y ago
  .lv

alistairSH 7y ago

Nothing new or different. Keep a 6-month cash reserve, save for retirement, live within our means, and hope for the best. We have plenty of monthly expenses we can cut if needed, but won't until forced to do so. Beyond that, anything else feels like panicking.

achenatx 7y ago

We have been preparing my professional services company for recession for the last year or two. Key steps 1) carry no "real" debt, build cash reserves. 2) focus on profitability over growth. Typically driving growth means hiring sales/marketing in advance of the growth and spending profit to do it. Adding new services staff requires carrying about 90 days of the employee costs due to non billing the first month, and the 60-90 days until we receive cash from their first billings. Focusing on profit means raising prices, shedding overhead, getting long term contracts, driving efficiencies. 3) Focus on recession resistant industries. 4) Focus on acquiring more local businesses to reduce travel overhead required to clients. 5) no long term purchasing contracts 6) maximize credit line. Renew in advance of recession. During recessions banks kill lines of credit. As we start to get into a recession we will max out our line and then move the cash to another bank. Personally 1) Shed leveraged real estate assets, they are very hard to liquidate during a recession 2) Reduce debt usage 3) increase lines of credit 4) build 2 years of cash reserves (min of 6 months during normal times). Lots of money is made during recessions, you need ready cash to take advantage. 5) reduce spending now

shostack 7y ago
>"Focus on recession resistant industries." How have you approached identifying these?
- hello_moto 7y ago
  Self-help in any field. Self-help => be better, be productive, learn fast Self-help => religion Self-help => make money online, from home Self-help => investing in "tough time".
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Think about the point of market entry for a given product or service. Electricity? Pretty recession proof most likely. Toilet paper and nappies? Going to need those any time regardless of what's going on in the economy. Going to the movies? Can always say no and entertain yourself otherwise. Got into a car accident and need repairs? Going to happen regardless of whether it's a recession or not. I might only choose to do the minimum and not splurge but I'm still going to have to spend the money. Etc.

bravoetch 7y ago

I've been preparing for it since 2008 when my business was effectively killed. Anyone that felt 2008 has been expecting this. I saved, I split my eggs into many baskets, I made a spreadsheet.

apineda 7y ago
Mind sharing which baskets or type of baskets?

deleted 7y ago

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outside1234 7y ago

Save extra money - my experience from the dot com crash and financial crash is that you should assume you are going to need 6 months of runway and so build up an extra rainy day fund that you will have when it hits. For me, this means deferring big purchases etc. until this is built up again. Note, this is in addition to your retirement, which you DO NOT WANT TO SPEND during the recession, since the stock market will have crashed then and you will be spending premium dollars there that you want invested for the recovery.

jotm 7y ago

No debt, enough savings, a house with a lot of land out in the boonies, a willingness to do any job. The 2008 recession did affect me, but I managed. Will manage this time, too. As long as you can learn and adapt, nothing's a problem.

bluGill 7y ago

Not really. I have a good emergency fund - something every good financial guru has been preaching since before I was born. Beyond that, so long as I have my job I'll keep living. If I lose my job - it won't be the first time - I'll just cut my expenses and in the worst case I can flip burgers for something to live on until this blows over.

Gusen 7y ago

So you are telling us the Dow Jones is down 6,000 in the last week because of a sickness with a death rate of 2.3%...are you sure it could not be something else? Global stock markets have lost $6 trillion in value in six days. It possibly because Soros, Putin, and others are moving money out of the US so that it cannot be taken in lawsuits resulting from their involvement in the story below. Unless of course you believe it is because of COVID19 aka Coronavirus, a sickness with a 2.3% death rate. See below: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720... Attorney General Barr is not resigning; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller,Pelosi,Schiff, & Nadler: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. Supreme Court Justice Alito & FBI Deputy Director Wray also on board. See latest updates "Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 2O2O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency. 176 page PDF [last update: March|8|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... Previously reported: \Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 915+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty! See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O. \\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on 8 Mar 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills 12 boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on the 17th Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, New York on the 17Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5th Jan'19 at 17:39 for billion$ in bribes:. OINoire wvvk erwol vk. 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at 20 minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff who starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 tkmklte mwb, btermobrpm https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 176 pg PDF [last updated: MAR|8|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...

helen___keller 7y ago

I'm thinking of moving a couple silly side projects off EC2 to a spare home server to save $10/mo Eating out less, cooking at home with family instead Sitting on almost a year's salary in cash pay off major debt, but I finished that a couple years back. If you have a mortgage, it's about to be a great time to refinance the way bond yields are looking. The big one though, trying to work up the resolve to put to bed either my netflix subscription or my hulu subscription. Probably hulu. Haven't pulled the trigger yet.

nerpderp82 7y ago
The cultural and intellectual purchases are for me, the point of existence. So while tightening up the necessary and utilitarian aspects of life, I think we should not put ourselves under austerity. For instance, skipping three restaurant meals can be exchanged for an amazing home cooked meal, with top of the line ingredients and drinks, while being less than the cost of a single restaurant meal. Have a friend over as well, we don't have to cut off access to whole world. Don't trade the restaurant meal and hulu for a package of top ramen and 4chan. No one benefits.
whatsmyusername 7y ago
Good excuse to see if you can dockerize them on fargate (if they're scheduled tasks) or put them in s3/cloudfront (if they're static). I spend $1.50 a month on AWS. I made everything I had fit one of those two patterns.

ipnon 7y ago

As long as law and order doesn't dissolve I won't change anything. If anything I would have more dynamic behavior in a bull market. I may be delaying a job switch soon because my current employment is in a stable sector.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

swyx 7y ago

I went through a few scenarios with a developer lens here: https://www.swyx.io/writing/coronavirus-recession/ https://www.swyx.io/writing/coronavirus-recession/ TLDR: - If you make buying decisions (e.g. running a company or a department): think about how you can turn fixed cost into variable cost. If you were kinda half remote anyway, maybe go full remote or swap the office for a coworking space subscription. Hire contractors instead of full-time. Buy SaaS services instead of build internally. Focus on conversion and retention rather than inorganic user acquisition. - If you are a freelancer or agency: Think ahead to how your clients could be affected - you may need to aggressively grow your funnel while also planning for more downtime between work. - If you are an employee: You can't do much about your options or 401k. But recognize that you are doubly long the economy in terms of both your stock compensation and your job (and real estate in affected states). - If you work at a startup that has a cash burn necessitating future fundraising, be aware that this can become very very relevant to you if the funds don't materialize, through no fault of the founders. Think through second order effects - the funds may not materialize not just because VCs are less willing to part with cash, but also because the startup itself may fail to meet targets because of the broader economic environment.

anonuser123456 7y ago

2000 puts on SPY @210, 5/10. Everything in cash/treasuries before the market crumbled. This was eminently predictable from a payoff perspective. The market lagged the info coming out of China for a long time.

_bxg1 7y ago

For a couple years now I've kept the vast majority of my savings in investments (Betterment) to keep them from depreciating, and because I can withdraw them in an emergency given 3 days' notice. Obviously we're entering a season where that's to be avoided. So I'll probably start redirecting my surplus income to my regular savings account for a while just to give myself an extra buffer. Not withdrawing from the market, mind you, just taking a break from depositing into it.

phendrenad2 7y ago

By trying to find a job in tech again so I can start saving up an emergency fund. Otherwise I'll have to move to a lower COL region.

toohotatopic 7y ago

I believe that there won't be a real recession until globalization and especially the position between China and the West is settled. No side will be willing to slow down. As a consequence, there will be full demand for whoever is willing to get something done. However, there will be countries that will lose contact to the state of art in some areas. As a consequence, I am sorting my belongings to be able to move freely should that happen to my niche. In the still not so unlikely event of a recession, I hope that I can use that opportunity to start something new when rent and wages are cheap and governments try to stimulate the market.

eqdw 7y ago

I am prepared by keeping 20 grand cash on hand. I'm a foreigner on a work permit. I'll be fine _financially_ in a recession but if I get laid off suddenly my legal residency is threatened, and I need to have an emergency fund to deal with any fallout from that

amithedumbest 7y ago

Maybe I am the dumbest. The official world gouvernance plan for this time is/was(?) to freeze paying dividends; debt-repayment, interest, ... To accomplish the commanded view, the companys will stop given quarterly reports to the share market and start to give half-yearly reports... yearly... telling us: "We do this for your customer satisfaction" ?!

alpineidyll3 7y ago

I work for a hedge fund that inverses the market. I'm mostly buying properties offshore, and trying not to get divorced.

defen 7y ago
Getting divorced during a recession is the worst. The recession takes half your money, your spouse takes half of what's left, and the lawyers take half of what's left of what's left. So you end up with about 12.5% of what you started with.
- jesterson 7y ago
  And that's a very optimistic calculation
- alpineidyll3 7y ago
  Why is a market crash worse than a divorce? You lose half your stuff and your wife is still there! (jk tho, everything is good at home and I'm #teamvirus.)

zackmorris 7y ago

My recession started around this time last year due to some health issues I wasn't aware of, causing the most severe burnout I've ever had, which led to a falling out with my job. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt: * Don't count on contracting or remote work as a fallback. I've been trying my luck at it without success. The last time I did it was 5 years ago but it's totally saturated now, with most of the clients going through upwork.com and freelancer.com with 10-50 applications per gig. Go see for yourself under common searches like PHP or React. * The jobs really will all dry up. Go on something like indeed.com right now and see how many there are. Now imagine the same scenario after everyone has cut their workforce by 10-50% like after the dot bomb in 2000 or the housing bubble popping in 2008. Your selection may change from software developer to driving a delivery truck so it's good to have something you can fall back on. In my case it's moving furniture, but, at 42 I'm getting too old to do it. There will probably always be work in warehouses and restaurants though, like in the old ITT tech commercial. * Assume that any possessions other than big ticket items like a home or car are only worth 10% of their value. You can get 25% at a pawn shop generally, but not after a recession when everything gets dumped on the market in triplicate. So all of the consumer electronics in your home are probably worth less than $1000 and won’t sustain you for long even if you sell all of them. * Find your poorest friends or relatives right now and ask them how they get by. This is a good time to learn about donating plasma, collecting unemployment insurance, signing up for food stamps, etc. You’ll be able to make about $300-600 per month through these sorts of tools, but it will take all of your time. The US no longer has an operational social safety net (compared to healthy economies in, say, Europe) so the psychological toll of poverty has a way of locking people into its cycle by paying just barely enough to keep you in a state of slow decline. Best to avoid that by arming yourself with knowledge and knowing your rights. * Consider getting involved in politics. The problems looming in this next recession are severe and exacerbated by the fact that no real legislation happened to correct the original causes of the 2008 great recession. Expect there to be no cash or credit available. Millions of people will be calling for reforms and there could be ways to help in causes like a new version of Occupy Wall Street. Assume that politicians are asleep at the wheel on this so any help from them will either not come or be too little too late. We’ll have to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps again. This will be the third severe recession I’ve gone through since I graduated from college in 1999. Unfortunately my brain has adapted for survival instead of contributing to society at the level I had hoped for. I’m planning on the next recession lasting at least 3 years, starting around the time of the election. If it starts by summer, then Trump will almost certainly lose, so in the meantime we can count on an influx of capital from the private sector to keep us afloat. But next winter could be quite grim. Try to have enough money on hand to make rent until spring, roughly $3-6,000 for the average American. Note that the bottom half of the country has no savings, so there’s nothing they can really do to hedge against what’s coming.

mothsonasloth 7y ago

Savings Financial prudence A good stock of bare essentials Ensure my car and house is well maintained (no costly surprises) Make sure I am demonstrating and showing value in my place of work.

yathrowawaywn 7y ago

After my last startup failed 5 years ago, I planned to buy my first house somewhere in 2021, hoping that by then some crisis would happen to lower house prices and to give me some time to pile up a bit less than 400k$. I don't want to spend more than that on a house even if I had more money, I don't like mortgages and I had no idea in which country I wanted to live, so renting was a convenient option. I had to decide whether to put it in indexes or to save cash in tax free saving accounts. I went with the saving accounts so I'm sitting on cash. I often half regretted not going with indexes but having 5 years of time before settling down wasn't enough time to risk it. If I lose my job I'll start eating into my savings and get a smaller house / delay the stable house plan. The good side of being laid off, would be spending more time with my sons.

unstatusthequo 7y ago

Trading options that reflect market pullback and volatility. VIX being one method in short term. Trading put vertical options on SPY as another.

OrgNet 7y ago

Anyone think the housing market will also crash at the next recession?

RickJWagner 7y ago

I have studied asset allocation (per Bogleheads.org) and understand my comfort zone. Recessions are inevitable. I hope I'm ready, I feel like I am.

person_of_color 7y ago

Putting my USD in an 2.63% Indian FCNR(B) account

muzani 7y ago

There will always be jobs. Just less unnecessary ones, more jobs revolving around saving money. Some people are getting rich off a recession, so people will still spend on luxury jets and wagyu steak. Advertising will still be hot - companies will need money, so FB, Google will still do well. Anything that saves money will do well. Anything that raises efficiency and doing more with less manpower will do well. My wife sells cheap lasagna and her business is absolutely booming now, especially since things like KFC has become a luxury. It's also a good time to hold on to cash, gold, and possibly crypto if you expect deflation.

james_s_tayler 7y ago

Well... Preparing for the recession is something you start doing 10 years before the recession, not 10 weeks before the recession. It's just good habits constantly.

icedchai 7y ago

I have 2 years of living expenses in cash. Hoping for a nice vacation from the industry...

badrabbit 7y ago

What recession? A 8% loss in DJIA is not a recession. 1987 had bigger losses and no recession for example. 2012 had similary terrible oil prices and losses. Why is everyone so eager to jump on the panic train. Both on corona,this,Iran crisis,etc... The panic is more dangerous than the event,let us try to be level headed without being naive.

orasis 7y ago
Preparation != Panic
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Buying toilet paper to last a few weeks is preparing,a few months is panic

mister_hn 7y ago

just buy so much dip as you can

EnderMB 7y ago

I'm going to try and remove any kind of political talk from this as I can. To be honest, with Brexit looming and uncertainty around a possible election, I've spent the last year preparing myself for a recession. Over the last few years I've noticed a few businesses in Bristol contract their operations back to the capital, and salaries for software engineers overall have dropped, so I've largely been preparing for what I thought was the worst-case scenario: 1. A bad Brexit, lots of uncertainty, job losses, etc. 2. Increase in price of essential goods. We have a cupboard full of long-life essentials to last a few weeks, so we definitely won't starve. We're lucky enough to have enough room to store things in bulk, so we don't need to panic buy - and quite frankly I don't see a point in buying a ton of stuff I might not need when there are loads of people that will definitely need it. 3. A quick access fund with enough money to last me and my wife a few months, if needed. 4. In the long-term, increasing my skills in case I need to find a new job in short notice. Many of these steps will help for Coronavirus, but a concern of ours is what our "worst-case scenario" looks like with a Pandemic AND Brexit.

Trias11 7y ago

- Bought condo outside of USA for cash with renter already in place - bringing ~$1k/mo - Sold vested Co shares - not at the top of the market but 25% ago - before crash - and bought place in NV with much lower cost of living - moving out of CA soon. - Some cash saved that with frugal living could keep us going for a year or so with no issues.

askmeanyting 7y ago

Plant a vegtable garden! Learn to make your own kombucha, just kidding but learn to grow onions. People will kill each other over neccessaties like onions, matches and deoderant.