Just-in-time economics.
Trump/Epstein class: “They still have money we could plunder!”
But but they can carry a gun, and teh HoeMoez can’t use a public john! USA! USA!
German, here.
I failed my first college degree, and finally got one (a BSc in ecology) on the second attempt after 10 years of fucking around and procrastinating, with a grade equivalent to a C.
I’ve never had a full time job in my life, always worked between 24 and 32 hours a week, with 4-5 weeks of vacation per year and unlimited sick days.
I didn’t inherit anything.
And I am now 200x richer than 40% of Americans, with free healthcare and a decent pension set up on top.I realize I’m very privileged, but your country is just fucked.
Pension? In 2026? Wanna help me emigrate? Need a roommate? I’ll bring snacks!
No, in 2051, hopefully.
your country is just fucked
We know.
And only the really wealthy have the means to leave the country.
I have my deductions set up where I always owe $50-200 when tax time rolls around. Those fuckers are not getting all of it upfront.
This is the way
I’ve never understood why people get so excited about tax refunds, but this provides some context.
Not all tax rebates are due to the government over collecting either
I’ll be getting about $1600-$2000 just because I Used a certain amount of money towards buying my first home. It’s not money that I gave the government ahead of schedule, it’s money I wouldn’t have gotten unless I did certain things and filed certain paperwork.
Tax refunds act as forced savings for many people. It’s not a good way to save as the government pays no interest on the savings. The the people then blow the money immediately on major purchases or paying down debt buildup.
Personally, I always tried to make it so that I didn’t get a tax return. I always figured it cost me significant money in cash flow through the year. Always pissed me off to overpay in taxes when I could have used the money for critical things I needed during the year.
the government pays no interest
I can’t remember the last time I saw a bank pay interest, either. If you want to grow a principle balance, you need to invest it, and that gets real iffy when the demented gameshow host decides to manipulate the markets.
It seems like my 401k dips $5k every afternoon when Trump promises something insane, then bounces back the next morning when he doesn’t follow through.
Any halfway decent bank/credit union should be giving a decent interest rate given how high the national rate is.
For example Ally gives 3+% on savings accounts - https://www.ally.com/bank/view-rates/
This is deliberate
Keep people on the edge of ruin, and threaten their healthcare if they dare leave an exploitative employer
Slavery never went away in the US, it merely expanded to include more people and was rebranded as “the free market”, or “rugged individualism” or some bullshit
We literally have nothing left to lose but our chains.
And this is also why nobody is willing to actually rock the boat in the US. Everyone is too scared to lose what they have, our employers have us by the balls for our paychecks and healthcare, the banks have you by the balls because of debt and if you own a home and lose your job you could lose the home too.
The US has been turned into a giant company town. As soon as you get paid the money gets taken away.
Everything has been designed to extract the maximum money from people. From all the middlemen stealing convenience fees to subscription services to your increased medical premiums.
This is MORE of a reason to disrupt, get violent, and get destructive, not less
This is because of all of the individualism that is fostered and perpetuated to keep people vulnerable and afraid. It will eventually reach a tipping point and the working class will fight back.
“Individualism” became “separate them so they fight alone.”
Divide and conquer.
Exactly, comrade
It works only while alternative options of employment remain available. Even if they are lower paid. In fact that’s better for them. However, when the employment rate drops, that’s when people get desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.
People are already dying because they’re rationing insulin
People are dying from perfectly treatable illnesses
People are dying of malnutrition
People are dying because of needless violence
People are dying at the hands of the law enforcement who are supposed to be protecting them
I think the people are so beaten down that they are utterly cowed, and will do nothing
America was never brave, it was always a bully, within and without.
supposed to be protecting them
Citation needed. Otherwise yes.
That tracks with my experiences. It’s partly lack of money, but it’s partly financial irresponsibility. A lot of Americans are so used to crisis and struggle that they treat every windfall as a treat because they think that their savings slowly fading away or getting eaten in a few chunks is a problem rather than evidence of crises they didn’t have to suffer through. Add in the fact that their lifestyles rise to match their income and there’s no room for savings.
That’s not enough to resolve the big stuff, a low earner isn’t buying a house on saved tax returns. But a medium income household might be, and a low income household may be setting themselves up for disaster by buying too expensive of a car because they can afford the payments.
Too few Americans understand that living paycheck to paycheck should be seen as dire financial straits. The goal should be a few months expenses in savings, and if you can take a lifestyle hit to get there you should. My wife and I live in a studio apartment because we were worried about draining our savings too quickly while unemployed.
It would take well over a decade for a medium income household to save up enough money for a down payment on a house with their tax returns. And that’s assuming it was placed in a safe investment the whole time like in CDs or bonds. The housing market’s just too expensive. I can see the appeal of people using up their money when they get it if it means saving might take an unbearable amount of time, not that it’s in their best interest to however.
That greatly varies by location. Especially if you can find a house right outside city limits.
Cash to close on our first house was under $5k. Conventional, 3% down, no special program. Just had to overpay a bit and have the seller contribute back on closing to help bring it down to something more manageable. They don’t let seller contributions count toward down payment, but getting most other costs covered was nice.
To a seller, it doesn’t change the math. If you can negotiate paying $5k over the initial offer with it coming right back, it isn’t really a concession.
USDA has 0% down in “rural” areas, but it’s by zip code, and tons of suburbs/exurbs are in the right area for it.
None of this is meant to argue with you. I try to encourage people with these things, since it can be much cheaper than 20% of value.
Yes you pay PMI. Make it a priority to remove it. Read lender terms on how. We only had to pay a realtor to do comps 2 years after buying to demonstrate 80% LTV.
I wish it weren’t so financially responsible to own compared to renting. I don’t enjoy a lot of aspects of homeownership, but it really does change the game in the long run, so long as you are willing to cash out and down size at retirement.
where do you live that closing a house is 5K? closing costs are typical 4-5% of a houses value… so you bought a 100K house? like, what, 20 years ago?
closing costs for a condo in my state are going to run you 15-20K.
first time home buyer programs in my state are capped at a 72K income… on which you could afford a about a 1800 mortgage… the cheapest mortgages you can get are going to run you closer to 2500-3000. so by the time you can afford that mortgage, you need about 125-150K income…
It was 2017, $150k house, so $4500 down and most other costs we got covered on the seller side. It was more than $5k we got contributed back, just was picking an amount without thinking much.
I see it every day and I’ve been there.
It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that this is skewed towards young adults and seniors.
I was the young person with next to no savings and facing a nearly impossible situation of “saving” anything. Lots of us leave home in our teens with nothing or close to it. Then it’s a struggle just to get all the pieces in order, and all the while, the pieces you already managed to get in place break down, get stolen, need fixing, need replacing, and so on. That first step of just keeping your head above the water is not easy, especially without support.
And then towards the later years, peoples’ health fails them. They find it harder to keep a job and harder to make the same money they did when they were younger. Healthcare is expensive, even with insurance. Husbands and wives pass away, leaving you with the financial fallout. Even if you saved, the true costs of inflation come when you go to buy food and medicine and even when you need to pay someone to fix your car – regardless of what the official numbers are.
Granted, “cash savings” means even people who are otherwise relatively well off in terms of assets fall into this category. So, it’s also not a great assumption to assume that all these people are in difficult/dire situations.
Overdraft fees were a normal and expected part of my budget until I was 30.
What does cash savings even mean? I would assume that most people have their savings in a bank account…
Important
We defined cash savings as checking accounts that people consider savings, savings accounts, money market accounts, brokerage/investment accounts (nonretirement), certificates of deposit (CDs) and cash at home.
https://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/cash-savings-study.html
Well I had 1000, but bought my son a car and needed repairs. But like I keep trying.
I believe cash savings refer to liquid assets. That is to say, a savings account is a cash savings account, whereas an IRA or 401k are not, because the cash is tied up in investments.
Liquid fuckinv assets, you tedious derogatory noun.
That’s becoming my take, too. What surveys mean to ask is liquid assets, money people have immediate access to. But most Americans are too uneducated to understand what that means, so they ask about cash. But many people probably think that’s a question about how much paper money they have.
Basically, they ask a question in a dumb way to get around how dumb Americans are, but the result is a dumb statistic.
That’s not at all what they asked.
We defined cash savings as checking accounts that people consider savings, savings accounts, money market accounts, brokerage/investment accounts (nonretirement), certificates of deposit (CDs) and cash at home.
How dare you expect someone to actually read the source!
Liquid assets is how I understand cash.
it’s a dumb stat to push a dumb headline that seems dramatic so people can bias-confirm about how poor they are.
even if they are objectively not. i live in an area with 3 million dollar homes and 1 million dollar apartments, and every owner here will love to tell you how poor they are and how they are struggling in life and they dont’ have enough money.
i remember being in college and people whining about how broke they were, when they were dropping $5000 on a single spring break trip… statistically yeah those people are ‘broke’ but their parents were often millionaires.
Probably invested everything in crypto, stocks and real estate.
You’re supposed to build up a cash reserve before any of that.
And how many of that 40% are in poverty, legit struggling, and how many are simple spending beyond their means?
Because the difference is stark. Lots of college kids and young people don’t have $500 in savings, but that doesn’t mean they are struggling.
they cite numbers about “cash savings” but then imply that that’s equivalent to savings in general, or liquid assets. like, I’m lucky enough to have a decent amount in my bank account, but my cash savings is probably like, forty bucks? I hardly ever use cash and when I do I just go to an ATM beforehand, why should I have hundreds of dollars in cash lying around? is that what they’re talking about, or is “cash savings” some colloquialism or term of art that I’m unfamiliar with that also includes other things than strictly cash?
edit: to be clear, I’m aware many if not most Americans are in dire financial situations, not trying to dispute that, the wording just seems weird. my first instinct is they probably do mean liquid assets, but to use the word “cash” when “liquid” is a more accurate word that would still be understood by a broad audience seems like an odd choice to me. maybe that’s just a bit of my slightly pedantic tendencies
I don’t know why people would downvote you. I came here to complain about the same thing.
The actual problem is the shitty as usual reporting from faux news. The article never defines “cash savings” and provides no link to the referenced study. It’s lazy slop.
PSA: Y’all, please don’t post faux news ever. Find a better source or the original source. Thanks!
I think it usually includes savings accounts
Definitely. This isn’t about physical “cash”, this is about all liquidity across cash, checking and savings accounts. From the survey itself:
Most have little to no cushion. 14% of Americans have no cash savings, including 32% of those earning less than $30,000 a year, 20% of women and 16% of Gen Zers. Additionally, another 32% have some savings but less than $1,000. Almost half (45%) wouldn’t be able to cover more than a month of essentials if their income stopped, while just 21% could cover essentials for more than six months.
Almost half of Americans are a couple paychecks away from homelessness. It’s dire.
This still doesn’t provide a clear definition of “cash savings”. See the comment from WesternInfidels for the actual definition from the study.
We defined cash savings as checking accounts that people consider savings, savings accounts, money market accounts, brokerage/investment accounts (nonretirement), certificates of deposit (CDs) and cash at home.
https://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/cash-savings-study.html
I have 0€ in “cash savings”, I save my money at the bank not in cash…
Not sure if you dropped the /s, but that’s not what cash means in this context. Cash is usually refers to money that’s readily available to be spent at a moments notice. Be it in a bank or paper in your hand.
