Fourth Turning?

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Investing, Education, Business, How To

4.5 • 810 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don and Tom kick off this episode with a satirical bang—mocking the apocalyptic tone of a MarketWatch article about the “Fourth Turning,” a cyclical doom prophecy claiming America faces a cataclysmic reset every 80–100 years. Citing wars, depressions, and now AI, wealth taxes, and the fall of the dollar, the hosts break down the fatalistic tone, expose the fear-marketing behind it, and reassure listeners that, historically, markets have recovered—and rewarded long-term investors. 0:04 Faux alien warning: the Fourth Turning economic apocalypse is coming 1:16 Dissecting the MarketWatch article and the “Fourth Turning” theory 2:26 Peak catastrophe by 2030? AI job loss, collapsing dollar, wealth taxes 3:38 Don asks: what is this guy selling? Spoiler: $100M wealth club 6:01 $180k to join R360—clearly not for the average listener 6:33 Don’s “financial flinch reflex” PSA spoof (ad) 7:41 Tom: “We love being scared”—AI panic and deepfake video fears 9:07 Caller Sue (68): Ready to retire with $820k and SS? Don says yes 13:05 Sue’s next step: get a fiduciary checkup, maybe run Monte Carlo 14:10 Tom runs one: 50th percentile = she hits zero at 98 15:32 Flexible withdrawal rates might work better than rigid 4% 16:34 Listener voicemail: Should we switch from Roth to Traditional now? 18:16 DT’s Roth vs. traditional strategy: save taxes while you can 20:14 WSJ article on taxes and stock gains—do ETFs instead 21:25 Tax basics for investors: capital gains rates and efficiency 23:26 Mad Men nostalgia and mid-century tax rates 25:15 TV detour: Bewitched vs. I Dream of Jeannie vs. Outlander 27:10 Back to calls: Theodore asks about 403(b) options in Burlington 29:10 Don explodes: garbage annuity vendors dominate the plan 31:01 Aspire is the only halfway-decent vendor… if you avoid their advisors 33:54 Don tells how an Albuquerque teacher got Vanguard into their plan 35:44 Aspire hack: use FundSource for no-load mutual funds 36:14 Caller Steve: hold 20 stocks or sell and rebalance? 37:53 Tom: hybrid approach. Don: depends on need. Watch tax bracket Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future.
0:07.0	We're talking real money.
0:10.0	Attention, residents of Earth.
0:12.0	The final fourth turning is about to occur, leading to an economic apocalypse, like we have never seen before.
0:22.6	Beware, earthlings, your destiny is troubling.
0:29.1	Hi everybody. Welcome to talking real money.
0:31.9	Wow. I don't know what I was talking about. That was downright frightening. Really?
0:35.1	Was it really? Please don't do that again. Okay. I don't know what button you're hitting, but turn it off. Yeah, the fourth, apparently the fourth turning is coming. I'm not sure what that is. We're going to talk about that in a minute. The fourth turning. Not the third turning or the fifth turning. No, this is the fourth turning. And apparently it's something you're supposed to be very concerned about. Is this from the bird song, turn, turn, turn, turn? No, this is turn, turn, turn. It's only three turning. That's only three. That's only three turning. They were ahead of their time. This is the fourth turning. We're going to get to that in a minute, but I want to give you a phone number in case you want to talk about the fifth or the sixth turning.
1:11.5	We'll talk about all of them. We're going to just turn, turn, turn. Never, I don't know where I'm going with this.
1:18.9	855-935-935-talk is our phone number. 855-935-8-255. Now, let's get this little party started.
1:28.3	There's a publication that I think sometimes is just whacked.
1:32.0	No offense, Paul Merriman, who writes for them,
1:34.5	but Market Watch has a lot of really whacked contributors.
1:39.2	One of them is a guy by the name of Charlie Garcia,
1:43.1	who wrote a piece about the fourth turning.
1:49.5	Now, you read the piece, right?
1:51.3	I did.
1:51.9	I was not familiar with the fourth turning prior to reading this piece.
1:55.0	I will be honest with you about that.
1:56.8	I wasn't either until I read it, but that's why I sent it to you because I'm going,
2:01.1	okay,
2:02.5	this is crazy.
	...

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