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

Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–56 of 56 posts

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#51

Post by lotsofpulp »

hackernewds wrote: post #47
lotsofpulp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zillow is a biased party, being a business that earns its income from home sales. They very well could publicize different figures than what they really think, although I think it is more likely that they simply do not have the ability to predict prices any better than most others. Which is why they lost a ton of money in their home buying/selling division and shut it down.

that sounds illegal. if a platform has monopoly pricing power, especially on something like housing

Zillow has zero pricing power. Hence they lost a ton of money and shut down that part of their business.

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#52

Post by happytiger »

warriormonk5 wrote: post #43
happytiger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t be overwhelmed by this response. I recently learned that the 1000 bucks thing is mostly based on Bankrates annual survey and it’s not actually true that they don’t have access to 1k, so this is a little bit an exploration. > American households, on average, have $41,600 in savings, according to data last collected by the Federal Reserve in 2019. And that’s before the free money era and the explosion of wealth f…

>> American households, on average, have $41,600 in savings, according to data last collected by the Federal Reserve in 2019. Average vs Median strikes again. Median household has 4k. 70% don't break 10k. It's the high end that weighs on that average pretty hard.

Not my intention. That’s why I provided the sources.

The data in the last link really is worth checking out. I don’t disagree with you, but the numbers I’ve seen numbers are off quite a bit from what you’re quoting.

Source?

Age Group Mean Net Worth Median Net Worth

Less than 35 $76,300 $13,900

35-44 $436,200 $91,300

45-54 $833,200 $168,600

55-64 $1,175,900 $212,500

65-74 $1,217,700 $266,400

75 or more $977,600 $254,800

https://www.firstrepublic.com/insights-education/average-ame...

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#53

Post by friend_and_foe »

Well what do you expect? Life is a game of incentives. When your savings devalue 40% a decade you can't save money. When a politician talks about "stimulating the economy" what they're talking about getting people to blow their money. When they then go on to talk about how the average american can't cover an emergency expense of a thousand dollars, remind them who's fault that is. Money velocity comes at the expense of savings.

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#54

Post by BLKNSLVR »

happytoexplain wrote: post #24
ruined wrote: post #16

there is no tomorrow

I know this is curt, but it's the first thing that came to my mind as well. There's a threshold of what I can only describe as mundane misery past which it is very difficult psychologically and logistically to plan long-term, and tons of people are past that line. It is not a financial line. The majority instinct is to blame those people as personally irresponsible. But that is always unrealistic at scale. This probl…

Somewhat analogous to the "if you owe the bank $10,000 then you've got a problem" but "if you owe the bank $1,000,000 then the bank's got a problem".

If an unsustainable percentage of the population is beyond your mundane misery line then it's society's problem.

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#55

Post by justaguitarist »

willis936 wrote: post #49
hackernewds wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So because housing is expensive, Americans are making even poorer choices by saving less for them? Make it make sense.

Simple: housing affordability is racing out of reach at an accelerating rate. There is no future where the savings lift them into the landowning class, so they decide to not be as miserable as they could be if they futilely saved for something that would never happen.

Exactly. My partner and I live in a big city and both make north of $80K, but there's no reality in which we can purchase a house when offers are coming in 10% above asking/waiving all inspections/all cash/etc. So we are choosing to put that house fund towards having an actual wedding (instead of a courthouse one like we originally planned), traveling, and putting a small amount back for emergencies.

Re: Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

#56

Post by BLKNSLVR »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #31
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like a semi-predictable outburst of the-need-for-joy following the dour years of Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions and general down-sentiment; a society-wide emotional pressure relief valve. According to the article, it seem more like the onset of a doomer mentality. Why save for a tomorrow that you might not live to see? What if all your sacrifice and planning is for naught? Better to experience lif…

> According to the article, it seem more like the onset of a doomer mentality. >Why save for a tomorrow that you might not live to see? Wanting to set a floor for quality of life for your children?

Going by society's (total fucking lack of) reaction to climate change, there is only a preciously small percentage of people who care much at all for the quality of life of their children.

... which explains how we got here in the first place.

Post reply on HN