Relevance of the President in personal finances

[redal]

Just wondering…here’s my personal scenario, and its used to make my point, not to brag…

I’m 65 years old, I’m still working and not drawing social security. I have been working since I was 16. I have a 2K a month pension for 20 years military service. My annual gross income is about 165K. I have a mortgage with a balance of about 200K, but have 450K in equity. I have no auto, student, or home equity loans. I have one year’s expenses in the bank, and roughly 20K in savings for emergencies. I have a financial planner who oversees about 750K in investments.

I do not live an extravagant lifestyle, having always, in hopes of a retirement that will not require living on a fixed income, been a frugal, but not cheap in my donations to church and private charity.

All this has been amassed by careful and diligent planning over the last nearly 50 years.

Yet I keep hearing how the current President, with only 3 years in office is responsible for my financial well being, Even past administrations during my lifetime have only maintained a maximum of 8 years in office.

Does anyone else fee that hanging my blessings on the work of any President, rather than personal perseverance and diligence (and of course the blessings of God), a little degrading?

 

[Beryllos]

Yes. It actually sounds nonsensical. The current US Presidency can affect your current and future financial situation, but cannot reach back in time and influence past performance of your investments or the choices you made then.

Where are you hearing this sort of talk?

 

[phil3]

Where are you hearing the current or for that matter any president has been responsible for your past success?

But, yes, as a whole Americans are in better shape today than they were 3 years ago.

 

[BartholomewB]

Yet I keep hearing how the current President, with only 3 years in office is responsible for my financial well being,

I never heard that. Every president attempts to pursue an economic policy and that will usually have some effect on the general state of the nation’s economy. But no more than that.

 

[PrayHarder]

This is the unfortunate result of us giving the executive branch way to much power and importance. Congress has basically ceded its constitutional authority to the other two branches, executive “czars”, and various unelected boards, panels, and groups. No one in Congress ever wants to put things to a vote in case it goes badly and their name is attached to the bill, budget, tax reform, declaration of war, etc. So they just let the president, who only has 4 to 8 years tops in office, take the responsibility and the blame/credit.

Look at how people saw Obama or Trump as their “savior” from all that ills them or they were the devil incarnate. Remember the woman who said she would never have to worry about her mortgage if Obama was elected? I remember hearing someone say how she woke up crying every day whenever she thought about how Trump is president. As a society, we have elevated the presidency to these dramatic levels where many of us start to believe that our entire livelyhood is 100% at the whim of whoever is in office.

The OP has the right idea in my opinion. You are ultimately in control of your wellbeing. We’ll have good governments and bad ones, good presidents and bad ones, but living responsibily and planning sensibly will survive any single administration.

 

[phil3]

The OP has the right idea in my opinion. You are ultimately in control of your wellbeing. We’ll have good governments and bad ones, good presidents and bad ones, but living responsibily and planning sensibly will survive any single administration.

We have too many people in this country who dont understand TANSTAAFL. They honestly, but ignorantly, believe this country can provide free health care, free education, free food, free housing, free transportation, and the list can go on and on. They want to remove individual responsibility and turn that over to government.

You always pay for what you think is free as in gratis not free as in libre.

Strangely enough those who want government to provide gratis everything, want to end end libre everything.