Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,619,501 times
Reputation: 9169
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
The real irony here is if everyone in the US lived within their income including at least a 10% savings rate and avoided all credit cards the entire façade of our "consumer economy" including the automotive and communications industries would collapse within a few months as their sales not only failed to grow but actually diminished.
While I would, so long as my retirement, SS and Health Care, did not diminish in value, would not mind living in a deflation as industries tried cutting prices to maintain sales and banks paid higher interest to maintain savings amounts.
Exactly, a lot of people only have jobs because of other people using credit or spending beyond their means. And deflation wouldn't suddenly drop the price of a car back to $2,000 again or a house back to $10,000. Because of the "inelasticity of wages" otherwise known as sticky wages, if pay were to drop, your workers would lose moral, and probably quit, so the only other choice is to drop prices while still paying current wages, and if the cost of production exceeds what you can sell the product for, then the business is insolvent. So car manufactures and real estate developers would close up shop, and then you might be looking at a $100,000 used Malibu or a $3,000,000 condo due to no more inventory
We've all met people like that. They wake up one day at the age of fifty and realize that they are the grasshoppers who danced and sang all day while the ants toiled. They are the people who ask if they can store their stuff at your house because they have to finally move their stuff out of their parent's house.
I've long known about the smattering of 60+ people who still have to work and who resent those who have successfully retired at the same age. What's new to me is the Grasshopper-syndrome millennials. Younger people in their 20s and 30s, resentful of those of us who scrimped and saved for decades and are now comfortably well-to-do.
I hear it all the time: some 20-something guy complaining that he cannot afford a house in {Austin, Boulder, San Francisco, Boston}, and further that he resents his elders who are retired and self-funded.
Sorry buttercups. Every American should expect to work and save for 40+ years. Your elders all commuted from far-flung locales for years. We worked overtime and watched our pennies. There is no right to live in an expensive hipster neighborhood fiddling with overpriced Apple gadgets nor any reason for someone under 50 to feed at the public trough.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,619,501 times
Reputation: 9169
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri
This is ridiculous economics.....it assumes one is spending 4 to 5% of their income on their cable bill. Add in a cell phone bill and some other stuff, and this could easily top 10% of income.
For basics, let's take $150 cable bill....and other extras (cell phone, etc.) to total $250.
During a normal 30 year working career - that money invested in the stock market and compounded would be over 300K. $300,000.00
Are there many people here who can afford to be 300K short when retirement rolls around?
Ridiculous? My cellphone and cable/internet combined are $200/month, and I net that in a day and a half. Plus I'm not the sole earner in my household, my fiance also works, while going to school to get her Bachelor's in business, already has her Associates. She might make more than I do after she gets her 4 year degree.
Besides, people need a little pleasure in their life. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Ridiculous? My cellphone and cable/internet combined are $200/month, and I net that in a day and a half. Plus I'm not the sole earner in my household, my fiance also works, while going to school to get her Bachelor's in business, already has her Associates. She might make more than I do after she gets her 4 year degree.
Besides, people need a little pleasure in their life. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I get as much pleasure from my Amazon Prime and my $40 cell phone plan as I need...then again, I left the daily grind in 1998 at the age of 45.
Back to the subject of the thread - it all depends on what you want. We probably paid 200K+ for our kids college and helped them buy houses and cars.
It may be that you are looking forward to working into your 60's - that's all and well. But the point is that money doesn't save itself.
I'm not trying to sound "arrogant", as I grew up poor and started saving when I turned 27. I'm 50 now and will not be relying on social security as my sole income. I've never heard someone on welfare cannot have a savings account. While some of these people were too poor to save, many others worked their whole lives and failed to do so.
Generally, one can only have "so much" in savings. I don't know the number, and it probably varies by state.
I am only 50, but already 5 years older than my father when he retired, and I am most likely going to work until I am 70 (software development is not that physically taxing, so it should work out).
And? He took bigger risks than I have, those risks paid off better than my risk-averse full time employee salary income, and good for him. It isn't unfair if I work until the day I drop dead. I make my own choices, including saving, investing, spending, etc...so how could my choices dictating the terms of my later years be unfair? Easy answer - it isn't.
I am not entitled to anything beyond what I earn, trade for and save. That includes my retirement. SS says that as of today, I am entitled to some benefit later on, but we'll see, because I don't buy SS being around when I get old enough to go after taking back what was taken from me. But beyond that, I will have what I saved, invested and can earn. Same game as always, I'll just be older while playing it.
And for those who chime in with the inevitable "what if you get sick and it bankrupts you" straw man, I can answer preemptively by stating that I know for 100% guaranteed fact that no sickness will bankrupt me, because medical spending is a choice. An illness may very well kill me, but it won't bankrupt me, because there's no way I am dumping everything I spent the last 30 years working for into some fool's errand of living an extra 6 months. My wife feels the exact same way. So if the bad juju comes calling, I am hopping on the morphine train and riding off into that sunset. Cheap, easy, effective. Selfishness is what bankrupts people over illness, not the illness itself. I'd rather my family has that money than some hospital corporation conglomerate.
Bottom line, my age will not entitle me to things other than what is already contracted or I have saved/planned. And I'd forego SS and Mediwelfare right now if I could, if they simply give back every dime taken from me for the FICA and Mediwelfare taxes. Not even with interest. Just cut me a check for every dime taken, and I'll be on my way. No entitlements, nothing.
The real irony here is if everyone in the US lived within their income including at least a 10% savings rate and avoided all credit cards the entire façade of our "consumer economy" including the automotive and communications industries would collapse within a few months as their sales not only failed to grow but actually diminished.
While I would, so long as my retirement, SS and Health Care, did not diminish in value, would not mind living in a deflation as industries tried cutting prices to maintain sales and banks paid higher interest to maintain savings amounts.
So true. Just ask Japan.
Kids in the Bay scream about the rents and then sign the leases. If just ten percent said “no thanks” rents would stabilize and fall.
Yeah, but I can afford it. I make more in one day than it takes to pay my cable bill
OK
I thought you were complaining about your own predicament. It seems you are not.
Carry on.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
