Morgan Housel

And if I were in your shoes, would I believe the same thing?

And I think nine times out of 10, the answer is yes.

And so I can look at that yearning for nostalgia and I could come up with 10 reasons why it's dumb and we shouldn't do that.

And it's false nostalgia to begin with.

I can also say, if I was in your shoes, I'd probably be saying the exact same thing with as much fervor as you do.

So I think that's a lot of it.

I'll give you two answers, one technical, one philosophical.

Technically, and this is what I do with my own money, if you are only saving for the risks that you can envision,

that you can put your finger on, you're gonna be caught off guard by the surprise 10 times out of 10.

And what does the most damage by far in history are the surprises.

Pearl Harbor, 9-11, COVID, that nobody sees coming until they happen and do all the damage in the world.

The solution to that for me has always been, I have a level of savings and liquidity and lack of debt that seems excessive.

And if you were to look at it right now, you might say, Morgan, what are you saving for?

Are you saving, like, you have all this cash, what are you saving for?

And I say, I don't know.

I'm saving for a world in which the biggest economic risk of the next year is something that you and I are not talking about.

It's not in the newspaper.

Nobody's talking about it because that's always the case, always will be the case.

So save an amount that feels like it's excessive.

That is the only way in which you have a fighting chance to survive the risk that you can't envision.