[Fiddlerdave]

Sadly, a number of the people with no savings had LOTS of savings when their jobs ended - but then they decided it was time to start their own business.

Having been in my own businesses since the age of 9, I can say from experience starting a business pretty much guarantees you will be left with no savings. On the average, you need a job to have the money to have your own business. A good job - unemployment is not enough.

After you open and fail with two or three companies, you start to get the idea of what might make a good business. Of course, then you need luck, and a lack of large businesses working hard to whack you down.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'A')s I've always said, all that waste in the system is someone's job, and thus ultimately my job.

[Cid_Yama]

All those 40 and 50 yr olds had been fed the nonsense about unending growth, while wages stagnated since the 1970's. They were sold a package. They expected to work for the same employer all their life, as my generation had done.

Instead, employers betrayed them, cut them loose and hired younger workers who would work for less, and before they would have to pay them the pensions they had been promised.

Then, all the protections of their retirement investments were lifted so that Wall St would be free to fleece them. First glass-steagall, then the tick rule. Also, new means of conning them out of the equity in their homes were allowed to exist without regulation.

The last decade was spent feeding on this generation, who had trusted and believed in the nonsense, which just made them easy marks.

Where did their savings go? Where did their retirement go? Right into the pockets of Wall St.

Don't be blaming them. They actually believed in the Republican nonsense, and paid the price.

[midnight-gamer]

I was in Boston this summer and the number of empty high rise office buildings really made a impression. A number of investment firms and what looked like a whole city block, that belonged to some bio-tech company. A man in a dirty,ragged business suit was walking around, attempting to gain entry into some to the closed buildings. I wish I had gotten a picture. So many homeless now, more prevalent than I ever recall seeing.

[Plantagenet]

If you read a social history of the Great Depression in the 1930s it was the MIDDLE CLASS that got wiped out. Its the middle class that buys homes and then loses them...the middle class that has small businesses that go bankrupt...the middle class that has good jobs and then gets fired....its the middle class who gets sucked into stock market bubbles (1920s) and real estate bubbles (2000s) and then gets wiped out.

The impact on the middle class during this recession is in many ways a replay of the pain inflicted on the middle class during the 1930s depression.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'A')ll those 40 and 50 yr olds had been fed the nonsense about unending growth, while wages stagnated since the 1970's. They were sold a package. They expected to work for the same employer all their life, as my generation had done.
Instead, employers betrayed them, cut them loose and hired younger workers who would work for less, and before they would have to pay them the pensions they had been promised.
Then, all the protections of their retirement investments were lifted so that Wall St would be free to fleece them. First glass-steagall, then the tick rule. Also, new means of conning them out of the equity in their homes were allowed to exist without regulation.
The last decade was spent feeding on this generation, who had trusted and believed in the nonsense, which just made them easy marks.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'I')f we all saved and didn't spend, the economy would come down like a ton of bricks. As I've always said, all that waste in the system is someone's job, and thus ultimately my job. So I personally prefer that other people spend away.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')This is a fair point. If everyone were "crazy savers" like me, who saved literally half of their gross income during their most productive years, I suppose the economy would implode - at least as it is structured now.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'I')f we all saved and didn't spend, the economy would come down like a ton of bricks.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', ' ')If you put the savings in a bank, etc, isn't it available for the bank to loan to folks who want to start businesses, etc?

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'O')utcast_Searcher, there is nothing to save anymore.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Now, IMO, in the long term, that would still likely be a good thing, assuming it helped spur overall investment (as you implied it should, and I agree). Unfortunately almost all of us -- from US politicians to (many) US CEO's to most shoppers at the mall -- seem to have the planning horizon of a gnat (and I didn't mean to insult gnats).

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '.')...do we try to use a LITTLE of our brains to make sensible decisions?
Do you really think the masses are that stupid? Or depressed? Or delusional? Or have just given up? Or have they been taught unrealistic values/expectations (not entirely their fault, clearly), which leads to self-destructive financial behavior? IMO, it's the latter.

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')I wonder how many years folks have to see this stuff going on before they wake up to reality and live far enough below their means to do some SERIOUS saving.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', ' ')I'm 52, now earning a comfortable 6 figure salary. Up until 14 years ago, my top salary was $27K a year.There were no savings, especially if you had to have a car to get to work. The car ate up any extra you had, and oh, don't get sick or have dental problems. Very expensive.

[Crazy_Dad]

Well this is the face of offshoring jobs. Both in AU and the USA.

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/662441

Boycott apple. Who needs the retarded iWhak anyway?

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'M')ost people never earn a 6 figure salary. I never did, the closest my household got was about $90,000 one year. That one good year enabled us to buy our land, have a house built, and move to Texas from Los Angeles. We wouldn't have been able to continue at that level, though, because I became seriously ill. Folks who never experience illness or injury are unusually lucky or blessed. But I think it might make them incapable of empathy.

[deMolay]

Unemployment has been above 9% since May of 2009 almost 18 months maybe a new record. Are you better off under Obama's Rule? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories