[Pooge]

> Simply putting money into assets instead of cash doesn't mean you make more money

I never said that. Cash loses money by design. This is not true of any other asset, for obvious reasons.

However, diversified indexes have historically always outperformed cash especially if we compare long intervals.

[andrewmcwatters]

No, they haven't. You're thinking specifically about how the US market has been lucky enough for that to occur.

There is absolutely nothing intrinsic about that happening as a guarantee. Look at other countries' stock exchanges.

There have also been periods of time in US history where your equities would have lost catastrophic value as you were ready to retire and all of a sudden you wouldn't have been able to draw down on your retirement without a blend of income from somewhere else.

[Pooge]

This is my last reply to your comments.

You're putting words in my mouth and responding to arguments I have never even made.

> There have also been periods of time in US history where your equities would have lost catastrophic value

This is true, but it also is true for cash. You rarely (never?) need all the value of your portfolio at once, so I don't understand your point. Also, most investors invest throughout their lives so even dramatic losses could actually just be a breakeven due to compounding[1]. My point stands that longer-term, an index vastly outperforms cash.

> you wouldn't have been able to draw down on your retirement without a blend of income from somewhere else

Guess what? This is exactly what happens in most cases (at least in my country) anyway as the national pension doesn't give nowhere near enough to live.

[1]: I've found a simulator that goes back a very long time back (https://dqydj.com/sp-500-periodic-reinvestment-calculator-di...). I've selected a period from January 1884 to December 1932. 1932 is one of the big dips, and 1884 would be the time someone would start working if he retired in 1932 (roughly 45 years earlier). For monthly investment you can put whatever you wish, but I've set the initial investment to zero. You can see that your scare tactic doesn't work as the investor still made a huge profit despite an apocalyptic market crash.