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So you reply with your opinion and nothing to back it up ?
Some "economic warrior" you are.
I pick my battles and long ago stopped engaging the unarmed. When you grasp how utterly clueless your replies above are and want to frame a serious question with some current notion of the field you're asking about, I'll be happy to pick up either pointer or sword.
Most people buy junk, junk, and more junk. People seem to love to rent forever these days rather than save up to buy a home too. Those same renters and low-end home owners seem to love buying cigarettes, energy drinks, chewing tobacco. How many people spend $40,000 over the course of a decade on cigarettes alone? With investment growth that money could easily be $50k and likely $60k instead....but now it's in the pockets of Phillip Morris and company, and I'm sure that 7-11, Wawa and all the gas stations thank the heck out of idiot smokers for the skim that they get off the transactions.
People also seem to love $15 movie tickets, eating out, shopping and expensive tattoos and piercings. It's not like the bars and restaurants are clamoring for customers either, in fact Bartender is the fastest growing profession in the USA. Gee, I wonder how many of the punks wanting the government (meaning MY tax dollars) to pay off their student loans also have $3,000 or more worth of tattoos. One of my 2nd best friend's several room mates can't scrape together her share of the electric bill, but she managed to get a tattoo last month, Talk about irresponsibility, and her only slightly more responsible brother got an even larger one that was colored, but at least he's covering his bills.....for now....but still quite on that financial edge.
Ever go to the grocery store and see women buying $50-100 worth of hair dye? Yep. There goes that money that could've been used for the very basics and for savings and investment. People somehow think that that stuff doesn't add up, but it does. What about clothes and shoes for people? Most of us likely have way more than enough, and aside from socks and shoes I really don't have anything that wears out. Furniture? I've had mine for more than a decade and only just replaced a mattress from 2007 earlier this year (which is my guest bed's mattress and I've had at least a dozen uses from that).
And then there's people who drive around in vehicles that are way too expensive for what they earn. Some people are making 40k/year (32k after taxes, roughly) and still buying 40k or even 60k trucks and SUV's. That's insane! My car cost 9k and I've had it for almost exactly 9 years now with incredibly little maintenance and great gas mileage! No wonder people are financially choking when they're shelling out $400-600 (or more!!!) every month for a car payment. That's hard for me to fathom....I've never had a car payment to make.
According to the most recent Fed study "most" Americans are doing ok financially and/or living comfortably (75%).
It seems the people most likely to suffer financially are the ones with only HS or less for education.
Those with college degrees are doing ok/comfortable financially with 80+% for all races.
IMHO I think the media pushes this agenda by cherry picking and exaggerating statistics.
Remember the "most Americans can't afford a $400 emergency" articles many media outlets had ?
Well it came from this study only this study didn't exactly state that. 61% can afford a $400 emergency expense which is up from 2013 (50%). What the MSM did was to include those who would use a credit card as those not able to pay $400 emergency expense which has no bearing on whether or not you can afford it.
When you want to understand something it always pays to go to the source and read it which is what I try to do with any MSM article and I dismiss any of those articles that do not cite their source.
People keep referring to CHEAP credit...CC interest rates are in the neighborhood of 25%. Not cheap to me. Mortgage rates are cheap, but consumer credit interest is criminally high. Whatever happened to usury laws?
Hmm. Does it, now? Every act of an individual is solely, entirely the responsibility of that individual? There's absolutely no onus on education, conditioning, biased information, deliberately fostered ignorance? Each of us should only know and do what's right despite anything we've been told, or not told?
Okay.
Yup, pretty much. People need to use their brains for what they were designed for...thinking. Or as my mom used to say..."So if everyone else jumped off a cliff you'd do it too?"
People keep referring to CHEAP credit...CC interest rates are in the neighborhood of 25%. Not cheap to me. Mortgage rates are cheap, but consumer credit interest is criminally high. Whatever happened to usury laws?
You forgot to emphasize 'criminal.'
I have a very good FICO and have for decades. I have not a smudge on my credit for a least 20 years. i have two credit cards I've had for at least that long, originally low-interest ones in the 6-7% range.
They are now at 18%+... with my credit history, with my account longevity, and with interest rates at long-term historic lows. Even prime rate is only 5.5% (which is in itself rather high, given the zero basis for the bigger rates) so the old Prime+2-5% or so should mean I pay no more than about 10-11%.
Eighteen effing percent. Criminal as in Tony Soprano loan-sharking.
By every relevant economic measure, our economy and nation are much, much better off today than 10 years ago. No serious person would disagree.
And, just as at every point in time in the past couple hundred years or so, there are families who could get financially crushed if (a) they lost their job and couldn't find a replacement within a reasonable amount of time (good thing we have a robust job market!), (b) they got divorced with the concomitant significant extra expenses, (c) they were hit with a catastrophic financial emergency (e.g., massive uninsured litigation judgment, or massive uninsured health problems such as needing experimental medical treatment). No serious person would disagree.
Correct. However, limiting your arguments to people who you think make too little to spend so much on things you don't like is simply bias.
Junk is junk, overpriced is overpriced, excess is excess whether it's a pack of ciggies or a Class-A motorhome. Lattes every day or a country-club membership. An iPhone on rental terms or a three-week cruise.
By every relevant economic measure, our economy and nation are much, much better off today than 10 years ago. No serious person would disagree.
...that this is true for the upper percentages. Too bad about the rest.
Were you ever going to stop making this narrow "everything is lovely inside the compound" argument?
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