You know people have gotten too complacent about investing in the stock market and what it takes to grow real wealth when…

1. People bragging about becoming 401(k) millionaires and posting their balances on social media has become a “thing” (remember when everyone from the company executives to the janitor were bragging at the water cooler about being real estate millionaires, just before the last crash?)
2. People start to think they can actually retire comfortably on $1,000,000 (you can’t, because the IRS will take at least 25% – 33% off the top, and you’ll need $500,000 just to cover out-of-pocket healthcare and long-term care costs in retirement)
3. The personal savings rate fell to its third-lowest on record at the end of 2017
4. Consumer spending is rising, and more of it is being fueled by debt (the last quarter registered the second-largest percentage increase in charge-card debt in a decade)
5. Inflation is taking a bigger bite out of Americans’ paychecks (real average hourly earnings of 80% of employees fell by half a percent in January – its fifth decline in six months)
6. Hundreds of major companies have price earnings ratios that are higher than during the height of the 2000 and 2007 bubbles
7. For a decade now, central banks have pretended they can print up prosperity (which they’ve done at a magnitude beyond imagination… and we’re supposed to have blind faith that they know what they’re doing)

[Read more…] “7 Warning Flags and Financial Risk Factors We Face Today”