So the problem is not the accounts themselves or market but its the folks who want to pretend like they are more well off then they actually are particularly through their spending and saving habits.

For example, in your case, you can find out why your wife doesn't feel comfortable budgeting, let's pretend it is because she enjoys having extra 'spending money' or doesn't like to feel like money is tight when the paycheck is not.

I think pretending to be too busy to be on here before I could even be called 'too busy' wouldn't make sense for me to do.

Pretend you're an owner, would you owner finance a property to someone with: NO job, no savings, and sub prime credit?

At least traditional scammers don’t try to pretend they are offering a service.I’m not the only one who feels this way.

But, let's not pretend that CA or NY are disappearing, especially at the higher end of the market.

On both occasions it was normal to meet naysayers who pretended like they knew it all and could not see opportunity in the crisis.

The common joke was "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us". ;-)On a more serious note, in answer to your thesis, This article just came out:"Roughly 43 million American households have opted to rent rather than buy their homes because of convenience, cost or both." https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/59...

Stocks, real estate and investment prices climbed ever higher.The banking system was already experiencing crisis events in September 2019, with Federal Reserve injecting $412 Billion into banks, so banks can make it through Christmas/NY 2020 and then continued injecting money in 2020.Fed at first pretended this liquidity injection is not QE money printing, which was pushing stocks to new all time highs.In 2019, before the virus lockdown started, a market legend predicted the 2020 stock crash.

We can’t just pretend like everything is fine.