What preparations are you making before the economic collaps

DH's truck is in the shop, he hit a deer a couple of weeks ago. hoping they can fix it (so far, they said they would but both side air bags deployed, which usually means they wont, esp on an older vehicle).

the problem is, I feel like prices never go back down, so even if you buy something now, eventually we all get screwed when we have to buy/replace stuff later...

We are going to need a new washer/dryer in the next two years and I am thinking they may be our Hanukkah gift.

We’re good on a lot of fronts (appliances all reliable, new second upright freezer, new water heater, new A/C, added solar this year, just bought a new TV, etc.). We also just hired a new accountant and plan to do a first ever end of the year assessment which our previous accountant never did, which cost us $$$ in corporate taxes last year that could have been spent on a new company work van while DH was driving around a 13 year old beater. 🙄 We no doubt will have more questions now with all the tariff talk.

The only other things I can think of is our boiler is over 30 years old and will need to be replaced at some point, and we were planning on upgrading my car in two years when DD will be able to drive. I can’t imagine DH wanting to buy another car now and just have my current one in the way for the next two years though.

I applied to a job I can walk to if, if it still exists by the time they look at my application. Education related...

DH works from home, and we live walking distance from two grocery stores. If one of our older cars kicks the bucket (knock on wood) we will just use one of the other two.

I refuse to replace perfectly good appliances because whichever one I predict will die (knock on wood) and replace will not be the one that has an untimely death. If I had to pick one it would be our water heater.

Living more frugally, and fixing things ourselves will be how we deal with things. That being said, next year I will have two kids in college

And how long do you think that will take? How many families will starve or end up on the streets waiting for these factory jobs to show up? How will companies deal with the economic reasons they stopped manufacturing here in the first place? How will Americans afford the more expensive goods they will produce? 

How do you factor in the fact that unemployment is at record lows so there aren't exactly throngs of American citizens lining up to take these factory jobs? How will you balance the need for factory employees with the need to entice Americans back into agricultural work (once all the undocumented immigrants are gone) so we can eat?

I think Trump's forgotten that he can't force private companies to invest in a losing business model. And if he's intending for the government to build and operate these factories, that's literally socialism. Like for real.

Also re: manufacturing jobs via Oliver Wyman.

www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2017/nov/perspectives-on-manufacturing-industries-vol-12/manufacturing-in-a-changing-world/bringing-manufacturing-jobs-back-to-the-US.html

I just bought a new Christmas tree. I was going to hold off another year then I remembered how expensive they were under asshole's tariffs. Otherwise I think our plan is to hunker down and greatly reduce our discretionary spendng.

Yes. Everyone needs to give up the fantasy that manufacturing jobs are returning to the US, and they will look like, and pay like the jobs in the postwar economy. But because of MAGA's disdain for knowledge, for science, for education, who knows what higher education--hell, all education in the US will look like. 

DS will be getting his master's soon in a biological sciences field and has thought about working in government. I advised him to wait and see what the election brings. Now I'm going to tell him to run far, far away.

So here's the deal, since you obviously missed this part of supply & demand.  If you and your neighbor, and thousands of people have better jobs with more money, y'all will want to spend it.  Sometimes on the same thing.  Businesses may not have enough stock to go around because they are used to selling 1000 units and not 1300 units.  Demand goes up, supply not changed... what happens?  

The economy people *really* want in their heads is an anemic one.  You might get a pay raise, or a promotion or something that you, and only you have more money.  So when you go to the store you have more money, but prices are low and stable, and there is no chance of an empty shelf because all the other people are watching their pennies.

Growing economies are hard because it takes awhile for supply to catch up with the increase in demand, and allow prices to reach a new equilibrium point. Prices and availability jump all over the place, and apparently it makes people MAD. It happened post WWII, but people today don't know that.

We're getting a preview here in Houston of what public education will look like under Republican rule: factory-style "teaching" of slides and worksheets all day, every day, focus on test prep to the exclusion of all else, AI-generated lessons and grading done by AI, no professional teachers - just minders as kids work online or do worksheets and a small cadre of lesson presenters who are prohibited from modifying lessons to meet their students' diverse needs.

None of this prepares students to have the independent thinking skills and problem solving skills that will be needed for jobs now and in the future. Treating kids like widgets in the classroom will produce workers who perhaps could have spent 40 hours a week installing widgets at the car factory, but who will have no idea how to program and troubleshoot in a robotic manufacturing environment. They will not know their accurate history because they weren't allowed to learn it. They will never have read a novel or book in school (short passages only) so they're not prepared to fill in the gaps in their learning by reading. They will have had little/no exposure to the arts and humanities, which is how you end up with soulless monsters who view their fellow human beings as acceptable collateral in the latest culture war.

Families with means will switch to private schools, some of which will be excellent, and some of which - the lower cost ones that take vouchers (these will be a replacement for publicly funded charter schools) - will be mediocre or poor and will refuse enrollment to kids with special needs that are more expensive to accommodate.

This isn't conjecture. It's happening right now in real time in the 8th largest district in the country. Coming soon to all of Texas, I have no doubt. 

We have seen that style of teaching in charter schools for some time now.

In many places there aren’t workers for the factories that are already in place. Take Springfield, Ohio. They had a shrinking population and actively brought in manufacturing jobs. The owners of those companies said that before the Haitian immigrants came (legally) they couldn’t hire enough workers. That would be the case in many, if not all, parts of the country.