dud
Diamond Member
While conducting my daily financial research I came across this very interesting article which pretty much represents how I personally have been feeling about "US" as a country. I see it in many of the financials:we spend too much and most people (like the country as a whole) are in debt up to their eye brows, basing their purchases today on hoped-for future income. Here is the article:
We're a Nation Helpless to Save Ourselves
"In short, if profligacy is a disease, then we've managed it mighty well, and why should we believe that after all this time it's finally going to hurt us? For at least a couple of reasons. One, the cultural trend has been running in one direction for a long time now, toward greater glorification of spending and acceptance of borrowing. Saving may be a virtue, but it's just not cool. After years of decline, our savings rate is down around 1% of income, the world's lowest. That marks a genuine difference with the past, and it's cumulative: The longer it goes on, the harder to escape it becomes.
Two, the aging of the baby-boomers creates unique financial stresses. America's most pampered and self-obsessed generation hasn't prepared itself for retirement and, as usual, expects someone else to bail it out. Trouble is, succeeding generations aren't big enough or rich enough to handle the job. That's a new conflict.
None of that means the dollar must tank or interest rates explode, as some fear. The unwinding could be far more gradual. The result, years from now, could be Americans paying unimagined portions of their income to cover their parents' and their own debts (personal and national) and to pay interest and dividends to the foreigners who financed our long shopping spree. That experience could even be as traumatic as the Depression was for an earlier generation and lead, as it did then, to a generation of champion savers and investors.
That is, America could come out stronger?eventually. I believe it always does. The question is how much pain we'll need to turn us around. Right now it's looking like a lot."
I hope and pray that soon, very soon, our country (as a whole) will collectively wake up and get our financial households in order.
We're a Nation Helpless to Save Ourselves
"In short, if profligacy is a disease, then we've managed it mighty well, and why should we believe that after all this time it's finally going to hurt us? For at least a couple of reasons. One, the cultural trend has been running in one direction for a long time now, toward greater glorification of spending and acceptance of borrowing. Saving may be a virtue, but it's just not cool. After years of decline, our savings rate is down around 1% of income, the world's lowest. That marks a genuine difference with the past, and it's cumulative: The longer it goes on, the harder to escape it becomes.
Two, the aging of the baby-boomers creates unique financial stresses. America's most pampered and self-obsessed generation hasn't prepared itself for retirement and, as usual, expects someone else to bail it out. Trouble is, succeeding generations aren't big enough or rich enough to handle the job. That's a new conflict.
None of that means the dollar must tank or interest rates explode, as some fear. The unwinding could be far more gradual. The result, years from now, could be Americans paying unimagined portions of their income to cover their parents' and their own debts (personal and national) and to pay interest and dividends to the foreigners who financed our long shopping spree. That experience could even be as traumatic as the Depression was for an earlier generation and lead, as it did then, to a generation of champion savers and investors.
That is, America could come out stronger?eventually. I believe it always does. The question is how much pain we'll need to turn us around. Right now it's looking like a lot."
I hope and pray that soon, very soon, our country (as a whole) will collectively wake up and get our financial households in order.
