Quote:
Originally Posted by PBzeer
There currently is not, nor has there been for many years, any incentive to save. People will not put off the pleasures of today, if there is no reward for doing so. When you throw in the rise in 401k's and other retirement accounts, most people view that in the same way savings accounts used to be.
When you add that in, with the level of personal debt, there is really no reason to have any expectation that savings rates will rise. For better or for worse, Americans, by and large, have become investors, rather than savers. The question now, is what effect the Dem Congress will have on that dynamic.
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It's disingenous to ignore reality.
"....October's decline marked the 10th straight month of payroll reductions, and government revisions showed that job losses in August and September turned out to be much deeper. Employers cut
127,000 positions in August, compared with 73,000 previously reported. A whopping
284,000 jobs were axed in September, compared with the 159,000 jobs first reported.
So far this year, a staggering 1.2 million jobs have disappeared. Over half of the decrease occurred in the past three months alone.
About 10.1 million people were unemployed in October, an increase of 2.8 million over the past year. A year ago, the unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent....."
Also the 10.1% is the U3 number, not the 15% U6 number which includes those who gave up looking for a job. You need a job to have a 401K plan. If not, people liquidate it in order to live.
One last point. We lost 600,000 jobs in the first 6 months of 2008 yet the government tells us we were in a growing economy? And you believe them?
1+1=2 in Florida, they must have a different law of math where you live.