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Originally Posted by SentToStud
I have no idea why people save so little in the US. With all the bills people have to pay it's insane they do not pay themselves first (savings). I don't get it at all.
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We live in a society where we are bombarded with commercial messages from waking to sleeping telling us we'll be happy if we buy this, buy that, have this or that. I think we don't save because there's no instant gratification in saving (believe me, I continue to have this argument with my husband over him funding his IRA. Which reminds me- need to go nag him again about it.). It's good for the economy if people buy stuff here, and so we're pressured to do so. If we save, the economy suffers. If the individual spend, he or she suffers. Maybe if wages weren't so stagnant, thanks to the excessive corporate welfare of the past years people might actually have disposable income left after putting money into savings.
I also think the worst day's work Reagan ever did was deregulating the credit card industry. As soon as the credit industry no longer had a maximum amount of interest it was permitted to charge people, we got barraged with credit card offers galore with late payment rates comparable to that of loan sharks. I have a friend who got slapped with a 30 percent interest rate on her oustanding balance because she was late witih ONE payment. And of course, the Republican-led "Bankruptcy reform" of a few years' ago made it much harder for people to declare bankruptcy. Over half of people who declare bankruptcy do so because of a medical situation that, because of our f*cked up health system, drains them of any and all assets.
So, we have a society told every day we have to spend spend spend (hell, it's what Giuliani told New Yorkers to do the day after 9/11. No kidding. "Go shopping" was his response to what we should do) and a credit industry that makes it just about impossible for people with limited financial resources to ever get themselves out of debt.