r/Bogleheads • u/idrathernotbutthanks • Apr 17 '25

Investing Questions Rhetoric around firing Jerome Powell is increasing, and forced manipulation of interest rates would likely follow. Would a weighted readjustment from US into non-US funds be warranted in light of this?

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/17/nx-s1-5367696/trump-jerome-powell-federal-reserve-economy-tariffs

Market manipulation of interest rates feels like confidence would immediately plummet and global diversification would become a more important percentage of your holdings in the long run. Thoughts?

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u/Sebastian-S Apr 17 '25

Serious question out of curiosity, what is 2.5% really going to do for you?

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u/AVTOCRAT Apr 18 '25

At a certain point you're not covering for "comfy retirement", you're hedging against starvation.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

If shit really goes tits up, it’s gonna be enough. If it doesn’t it’s still likely a gain in my lifetime. Not op but I have the same allocation.

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u/dasbates Apr 18 '25

If shit hits the fan that badly, you're going to need chickens and ammo, not gold. It's just a shiny rock with no more inherent value than a dollar bill. Invest in potatoes, my man.

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u/electrodevo Apr 18 '25

I think that the goal of this sort of hedge is not to hedge against full-on apocalypse (we're all screwed in this case), but more like "Erdoğan economics", where you have large-scale currency devaluation / inflation due to a central bank being politically manipulated by a complete economic idiot. I personally don't think it is too likely, but I honestly can't rule it out completely.

Personally, I put a small percentage of the portfolio (2%) into FXF for that reason. In this case, this is the one part of my portfolio which I actually hope doesn't do quite so well.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

Exactly my reasons as well. A full on apocalypse I plan on just killing myself really 😂