re: Who is ready for the next big financial crisis?

You know what's nice about predicting equities will drop hard? At some point you will enevitably be correct. And then they will rise again. It's what the market does. Trying to time it has been proven time after time to be unsuccessful.

If it really does crash and everything truly goes to hell then we will all be in the same boat. The best approach would be to have liquid on hand to buy during the drop and panic. Keep a large enough emergency fund on hand to fund 1-2 yrs of expenses and you can ride out almost anything.

As for the people who are wanting to buy a house-renting is not throwing money away. You always need a place to live and you are not on the hook for maintenance costs of the home. In my opinion it's wise to never view a house as an investment because it truly is more of an expense.