
How Americans Spend their Money (pictocharts)  - alaskamiller
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/02/10/opinion/10op.graphic.ready.html
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pg
That is frightening: only the richest fifth save money. Or to put it another
way, instead of saving, the poorer four-fifths live as much like the richest
fifth as they can.

I bet this was not always so in America, and I bet it is not so now in China.

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ivankirigin
In a consumer culture, where entertainment, experience, and stuff is what life
is about, why would anyone save? What are you saving for?

I would imagine with multiple huge revolutions in recent memory, people in
China might have a reason for a different outlook. It is actually totally
backwards, because a poorer nation can expect to grow at a much faster rate
than a developed nation -- you just need to take off the brakes in the system
for it to happen. If you ignore the shaky history, you'd have to be pretty
dumb to save money when the economy is growing at 10% annually for a decade
(unless that savings is in the form of investments, but it usually isn't)

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ken
If you turn off the TV for a few minutes, you'll realize that "entertainment"
and "stuff" is not "what life is about", and experiences can be had on the
cheap.

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ivankirigin
I'm talking about trends in society, not my particular views. I don't think
anyone can say "what life is about" (including you), but I think my comment
was fair. Look at what people spend their time and money on, and you'll see
what they care about. The richer people get, the more things become about
experience, as opposed to consumer good consumption.

"experiences can be had on the cheap."

You're right. Back to the original point: why would people save if their
priorities are about consumer good consumption, and then good experiences once
they have all the stuff they want?

More generally, I think the bias towards saving is a too abstract view about
macroeconomic conditions. Credit is actually really, really cheap these days.

Things are really cheap, and experiences can be too.

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mynameishere
I won't speculate on the nytime's possible editorial status on the question of
class politics, but the bulk of the disparity has to do with the fact that
young people tend to go into debt, adults tend to earn and save, and old
people tend to divest.

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pchristensen
Agreed. A couple years ago I was a married student with a kid and a $17K
stipend, taking out $XX,000 in loans. Now I'm not borrowing any more money
(well, except the house), paying back tons every month, and earning many times
what I was then. In two years, I moved from the 20-40% to the 60-80% quintile
just by graduating and working. So I'd agree that those bottom two quintiles
are distorted by students (not sure how much though)

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daviday
the article is actually about how consumption -not income- is the best measure
of financial well-being.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10cox.html?_r=1...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10cox.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

