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

money.cnn.com

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

#131

Post by airstrike »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34

I had a coach that when I'd ask about how to get out of tricky situations he'd often respond with something along the lines of "Bro, you f'd up a long time ago"... I don't think 40% is some magic number to begin hysteria. Neither is $400. Selling something to cover your expenses might be a blessing in disguise if the thing you sell is a liability in the first place (ex: a car you cant really afford). My observation o…

> they need to be taught delayed gratification and to not be consumerists.

Except the American economy essentially banks on this fact, so you'd actually likely do more harm than good if people decided not to spend so much

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

#132

Post by s73v3r_ »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #62
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…

I have yet to see a UBI proposal that provided non-trivial amounts of money and yet was not simply financially impossible. For example, there are over 300M (300,000,000) people in the US. To provide $1000 per year would require $300B. But that's less than $100/month. If you're homeless, that might be enough that you don't starve. But it's not enough that you can go to a doctor and eat. It's sure not enough that you c…

"If you make it $1000/month, now it's enough money to actually help people. But it also costs $3 trillion a year. That's twice the current Federal budget."

The 2015 Federal Budget (I guess the last time we actually had and official one) was about $3.8 trillion dollars. The budget President Obama submitted on 2016 for fiscal year 2017 was about $4.2 trillion.

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

#133

Post by rexaliquid »

integration wrote: post #48

40% of America’s lowest-income families’ consumption goes to luxuries. The bigger problem is American’s terrible spending habits not lack of real income. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/g...

Living in poverty creates a lot of terrible spending habits that people struggle to break even if their income rises above poverty levels.

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

#134

Post by ryanobjc »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34

I had a coach that when I'd ask about how to get out of tricky situations he'd often respond with something along the lines of "Bro, you f'd up a long time ago"... I don't think 40% is some magic number to begin hysteria. Neither is $400. Selling something to cover your expenses might be a blessing in disguise if the thing you sell is a liability in the first place (ex: a car you cant really afford). My observation o…

So what I am hearing is we should spend heavily on time machines?

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

#135

Post by pnj9 »

taysic wrote: post #108
roenxi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with personal responsibility, which I am very much in favour of and wish we promoted a bit more, is that the deck is so stacked against people who don't have assets that I'm not sure average person can keep up. I keep saying it; the amount of money in the system has increased +50% since 2008 [1], and worker compensation has gone up +25% (the BLS publishes a lot of series, I use [2]; hope it is right). So…

Is this due to QE? edit: I am wondering about why the money supply has increased 50%. Wouldn't that require a massive printing of money?

It’s due to a long and storied history of elites manipulating the masses through intimidation and fear

It went from overt violence to less obvious propaganda programs tuning our feelings

I wish the “smart” crowd would look into the history of government-corporate propaganda research

I’m not talking “deep state”. It’s plainly recorded in government record how they financed propaganda research and gifted it to media for advertising and corporate use

Look at the joke history classes taught in public school

Look at the efforts to hide info about the environment by this admin

There is a concerted effort in our faces to deceive and misdirect is

Economics, jobs, and government scandals are distractions in support of these efforts

Read up on Greenspan’s comments in the 90s about growing worker insecurity being a boon to beneficiaries of supply side economics

Watch Varoufakis explain how during the Greek debt crisis German tax payers took out loans from German banks to have it to Greece who gave it right back to German banks

This is a generations long boondoggle unrelated to one policy decision 10 yrs ago

It’s a round n round we go with numbers because even the educated masses are too on the periphery to see or outright prevented from being in the room

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

#136

Post by jadedhacker »

dragonwriter wrote: post #120
scarface74 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I have the feeling that most posters on HN who consider themselves the "middle class", actually fall well above of the middle quintile of household income and most are in the 5th quintile. The true Middle Class probably don't make any distinction between anyone who is in the top 20% (household income over $116,000) or especially the top 10% ($161,000). https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-2…

> Why do I have the feeling that most posters on HN who consider themselves the "middle class", actually fall well above of the middle quintile of household income and most are in the 5th quintile. Because middle class in a capitalist society is an economic relationship between the captialist and working class (characterized by mixed dependence on capital and labor, most archetypically the independent operator who su…

This is a concept I haven't yet seen a good definition for though I know it is rigorously defined. What is the difference between the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie?

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

#137

Post by alasdair_ »

jadedhacker wrote: post #129
master-litty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so childish putting optimistic people down. Our economy, habits, and mindset can change with a great deal of work and energy. People are becoming more connected than ever before, and with that we can build a new kind of social momentum. Hey, you're right, things suck now, but it doesn't have to be like this.

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.

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

#138

Post by kibwen »

StephenSmith wrote: post #13

There's a lot of negativity in this thread and the title is very sensational. The point that should be highlighted in the article - "The bright side? That's an improvement from half of adults being unable to cover such an expense in 2013. The number has been ticking down each year since."

The negativity in this thread is justified, and the headline is correct to highlight the darkly absurd desperation of the average citizen's situation. To attempt to look on the bright side here would be analogous to a commenter on a news article in 1918 saying "well, 50,000 people will die of Spanish flu this month, but let's look on the bright side: 75,000 people died last month!"

Furthermore, even the statistic that 40% of people can't cover a $400 expense is lowballing the severity of the situation, because who says that $400 is anywhere near the average financial cost of an unexpected emergency? What percentage of Americans can't cover a $500 expense (we know it's more than 40%)? What about a $1,000 emergency expense (which in my estimation is closer to the median deductible for a health insurance policy (assuming that one has health insurance in the first place))?

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

#139

Post by pishpash »

jadedhacker wrote: post #129
master-litty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so childish putting optimistic people down. Our economy, habits, and mindset can change with a great deal of work and energy. People are becoming more connected than ever before, and with that we can build a new kind of social momentum. Hey, you're right, things suck now, but it doesn't have to be like this.

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…

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.

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

#140

Post by phil248 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34

I had a coach that when I'd ask about how to get out of tricky situations he'd often respond with something along the lines of "Bro, you f'd up a long time ago"... I don't think 40% is some magic number to begin hysteria. Neither is $400. Selling something to cover your expenses might be a blessing in disguise if the thing you sell is a liability in the first place (ex: a car you cant really afford). My observation o…

"They" need to be taught to demand a degree of rights, protections and subsidies in line with the rights, protections and subsidies afforded the already-wealthy.
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