Sounds like it’s going in the right direction for you financially, that’s great! Depending on the interest rate paying off a mortage is definitely the right call and a pretty good (+reliable) return.

That said i would probably still set up a small savings plan on a broad market ETF. Not because it’s necessarily an amazing time to invest, but to dip your toes into the experience and get a bit desensitized against the fluctuations. Doesn’t really matter the amount really (assuming you can invest without large fees), it just makes a difference psychologically to have skin in the game. That way you have some history once you decide to enter the market with larger sums.

The Covid dip, while certainly unusual, is a pretty good example to why it might be a good idea. Since then there’s constantly been chaos in the world, but you could have invested with the worst timing in 2020 and would now be better off than by sitting on the sidelines. The past isn’t indicative of the future, but on that topic i really like the story of Bob, the world’s worst market timer

To be fair i think times are rarely normal. Just since 2000 we’ve had the dot com bubble, great financial crisis, covid pandemic, ukraine war and now this. Although the current situation feels like a particularly unforced and unnecessary one. And before that there were also plenty of other crisis from world wars, the cold war with things like the cuban missile crisis or the 1973 oil crisis.

HYSA with those rates certainly seem like an appealing place to be in the current market, but as always this is a question about market timing, which is hard to impossible. When did you exit your positions and when do you plan to reenter? Because as said with the recent drops on a wide market scale we are still only down to levels just before the US election and nobody knows how things will play out in the future.

So my point still stands that anyone who is finding himself in acute issues due to the current market changes has done poor risk management. Broad market etfs are meant for a long term investment horizon of 10-15 years exactly so one can weather out downturns. And if someone is close to retirment it would have been prudent to shift some portion of savings into more stable investments similar to how target date funds handle it. Which might still be a good move right now, as the losses are still within reason, assuming a diversified investment strategy (and not something like having bought tesla at peak or the trump meme coin).

That seems like a good addition, although at least for younger people i’d still prefer stocks over the safer annuities, since with a longer time horizon you can weather out some of the fluctuations for higher returns.

What’s the better alternative? I’d certainly take a 401k over the current system in Germany where the current working population pays for the pensions of those currently retired. Which is obviously unsustainable if you take a single look at the demographic changes ahead.

Stocks will eventually go up again and at least for my global all world ETF the current drop means we are only back to where we were in September 24. Trump is certainly destroying a lot of wealth with his actions, but I think this would be true regardless of how you invest.

And anyone in hot waters right now because of the current drops should have probably been invested more diversified and maybe reduced risk a bit more.

Once again, girls are somehow responsible for boys’ inability to behave

That’s really not what i am getting from this article at all.

made the call because they believed that 11 to 12-year-old girls and boys competing against each other on the court could pose a liability risk leading to violence, even though the girls team had been winning 7-1 all season without incident.

they may get frustrated and retaliate against a girl.” "Then we have liability issues.”

McGraw said the girls were never in any real danger during the games, aside from the occasional side-eye.

“They got giggles, they got laughs, and people talked about them… you know, the looks.”

[emphasis added]

Where “once again” is the boys inability to behave? All i see is adults wanting to dodge POTENTIAL liability.

Beyond that there is the question about their participation in the league itself. Here there are as i see it two sides:

• They participated through deception (listing as mail AND apparently fielding a male team in the first game)

• Or one can be on the side that the system is broken and they should have been allowed to participate in the first place.

Again something that adults decide. Not sure if we have enough information to judge this properly.

Not sure why i spend much time on this nonesense, especially since i find this to be a pretty poor article (as is any that just randomly quotes social media users to make its point).