[mholt]

Tangential question, as I am not an economist and don't pretend to understand any of this: what would happen if the stock market didn't recover? (Surely, it could happen? Past performance is no guarantee of future results.)

The economy would effectively collapse, and I imagine our currency would be mostly worthless. People would withdraw what they could from bank accounts, which wouldn't be able to produce all the funds, so FDIC insurance would kick in, effectively printing money, but the economy has collapsed anyway?

^ That's just my intuitive speculation. I can't really grasp the scenario of stocks never recovering. Anyone with some education/background have a good explanation? (Not sure I want to trust AI with this question.)

[rawgabbit]

I doubt the economy will collapse but you will see massive layoffs.

Many of the wealthiest people of the US officially have zero income and pay zero taxes. They learned they want to be paid in stocks and stock options. When they need cash, they found it was easy to get loans using their stocks as collateral. In other words, if the stock market permanently tanks, it will affect the top 0.1% and prevent them from doing their current tax avoidance scheme.

For most people, they will probably get laid off, as corporations' seemingly only answer to a falling stock price is to reduce get head count. In Japan's case with their stock market in the toilet for the past thirty years, it led to a bi-furcated economy. The lucky with regular jobs with full benefits; the unlucky with gig jobs with no benefits.

[tim333]

Stocks represent ownership of companies and assets so at some point they become a bargain as you are buying assets and profit income cheap. For dividend investors permanently low prices would be good. They are quite expensive at the moment though.