Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

money.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 309 posts

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#171

Post by grigjd3 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #137
jadedhacker wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The piece you're missing is that none of this is a mistake, the entire economy is designed to do this. Apathy and hoping it'll get better will if anything make it worse (not that I'm implying that's your position). The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole p…

>the entire economy is designed to do this Unless you are a firm believer in the power of the Illuminati, we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day. Just because a behavior or other feature in a complex system is emergent doesn't mean the system was initially designed that way.

I'm not in line with jadedhacker, but its hard to ignore how often regulatory legislation is written by the industry being regulated.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#172

Post by dragonwriter »

eanzenberg wrote: post #90
cryptoz wrote: post #3

This makes it clear why our current capitalism doesn't work. The ruling class / rich and wealth people and businesses could extract more wealth out of the middle and lower classes than they do now, if the lower classes were more stable and secure. In the US especially, but nearly everywhere, there are hoards of people trying to lower or eliminate social services, basic science research, etc, with the dog-whistle clai…

Capitalism is the primary reason we're out of medieval times, thank you very much.

> Capitalism is the primary reason we're out of medieval times

Opponents of capitalism (on the Left, at any rate) see it, yes, as progress over feudalism, but just not the end of such progress.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#173

Post by ryanwaggoner »

zaksoup wrote: post #162
prewett wrote: post #156

Wow, everything in this thread is "those evil rich people, fleecing the poor." Quite aside from the fact that the target audience of this site can expect to make around 2X the median income of the US--meaning that we are those evil rich people--surely the problem isn't this one-sided. The poverty rate in the US is about 13% [1]; we would expect those people to not have any savings. That leaves about 33% unaccounted f…

I would push back on this bit about teenagers: > so they don't count as they aren't living on their own. I think it's a significant assumption to make that parents would be able/willing to cover a random $400 expense. The study did not specify a specific type of emergency expenditure, just that it was unexpected. I can fully imagine a scenario where parents would cover hospital visits for a bad case of the flu, but n…

I think this was a survey about households though, so not clear if teenagers living at home would count.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#174

Post by flubert »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #45
johnm1019 wrote: post #2

I think we as a nation should consider this an issue of national security. This type of financial instability in such a large percentage of the population could lead to making short-sighted or bad decisions in tough times, increased violence, increased rates of incarceration (both of those increasing the cost of government for all), among many other things. The reasons for it are multi-faceted I'm sure. I hope voters…

I cannot possibly comprehend how could anyone consider this situation and go "yeah, this is surely stable in the long run".

I believe I've been hearing stories like this (about the lack of liquid savings for Americans) for something like 30 years now. Anyone able to dig up the historical data on this? I kind of think Milton Friedman wrote about this in one of his books.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#175

Post by internetman55 »

seorphates wrote: post #164
ralusek wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being trapped in a debt spiral due to past financial desperation is just a way of iterating forward in the loop of bad decision making. What I am saying is that to enter financial desperation in the United States is not actually possible if you utilize the available social safety net and make proper decisions.

It looks like you believe stability is simply a matter of 100% good decision making and that lower middle class is just one bus fare and two transfer passes away. You're painting a picture with a brush as wide as your canvas and with only one color on your palette. I think we are mostly products of our surroundings so, yes, good decisions can help a lot. It just seems placing that level of "blame" is counter-producti…

Tbh I think we should take the people who run scam schools and just ban them for the country. Or have stricter regulation and accreditation I guess

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#176

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #160
rndmize wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is optimistic to the point I choked on my coffee. Our economy is predicated on consumer spending; we have a whole set of industries built on the backs of poor financial decision making and being near-broke (payday loans, credit cards, overdraft charge reordering, debt collectors, etc.) all of which pull power away from desperate people and give it to others (now your landlord/phone company/ISP/etc have lega…

> Actually, it appears that voters and politicians have zero interest in improving this situation, seeing as the current administration is making every effort to demoralize and defang the CFPB The current administration was elected with fewer votes than the leading opponent, so it certainly reflects a subset of voters and the politicians comprising the administration, but hardly is a basis for concluding that voters…

[deleted]

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#177

Post by babaganoosh89 »

mid wrote: post #150
johnm1019 wrote: post #2

I think we as a nation should consider this an issue of national security. This type of financial instability in such a large percentage of the population could lead to making short-sighted or bad decisions in tough times, increased violence, increased rates of incarceration (both of those increasing the cost of government for all), among many other things. The reasons for it are multi-faceted I'm sure. I hope voters…

Spin. From the actual survey data at https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/files/SH... , page 6: Overall, which one of the following best describes how well you are managing financially these days? 14 (0.1%): Refused 893 (7.2%): Finding it difficult to get by 2,395 (19.2%): Just getting by 4,930 (39.6%): Doing okay 4,215 (33.9%): Living comfortably

Are you sure that's right? I don't get how that adds up to 40%.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#178

Post by scarface74 »

jadedhacker wrote: post #147
pishpash wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you're going to do with that is to piss off the upper middle class, not the people who actually got fat on the backs of the poor and who are so far ahead of the situation that you're never getting that money back. It's gone. The only equalizer left is massive inflation, which may happen for other reasons.

Don't despair comrade, the revolution is coming (we must hope). Trump and Sanders both showed that the citizenry are restless and are ready to demand (some kind of) change.

Yes and when they demand change and start "taxing the rich". You're going to find that a lot of doctors, lawyers, and people in IT who are making low six figures are going to be classified as "the rich".

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#179

Post by empath75 »

ralusek wrote: post #31
sjg007 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should but you know personal responsibility and all that jazz. The wealthy only care when the pitchforks come out. The biggest achievement of the wealthy has been to convince the middle class to eat itself.

But personal responsibility is actually an important concept. It is completely unacceptable to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency as a functioning adult. That is a situation that can only be achieved by poor decision making and a lack of personal responsibility. Any strategy that is employed to remedy this has to contend with the fact that the individuals who need to have this situation remedied for themselves…

You simply have no understanding of what it’s like to be poor in this country. In a lot of ways it’s more expensive to be poor than to be middle class— you get hit with higher interest rates, more fees, more things like inspection tickets for your car that you can barely keep on the road. A single emergency room visit is enough to bankrupt some people.

I’m making well into six figures now, but in my early 20s, I was living pay check to pay check and barely had enough to eat some weeks. If I managed to scrape up an extra $400, I had a hundred things to spend it on that weren’t a rainy day fund.

Re: 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense

#180

Post by oldcynic »

mid wrote: post #150
johnm1019 wrote: post #2

I think we as a nation should consider this an issue of national security. This type of financial instability in such a large percentage of the population could lead to making short-sighted or bad decisions in tough times, increased violence, increased rates of incarceration (both of those increasing the cost of government for all), among many other things. The reasons for it are multi-faceted I'm sure. I hope voters…

Spin. From the actual survey data at https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/files/SH... , page 6: Overall, which one of the following best describes how well you are managing financially these days? 14 (0.1%): Refused 893 (7.2%): Finding it difficult to get by 2,395 (19.2%): Just getting by 4,930 (39.6%): Doing okay 4,215 (33.9%): Living comfortably

How is it spin? Just means there are a lot of people who believe doing OK encompasses having less than $400 ready cash.

I might call it blind optimism seeing as pg 21 of the same PDF shows the sources they would consider to fund an emergency expense, but not spin.

Post reply on HN