Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Atticus was making the point that savings are down under Bush. I was asking if the numbers incluse retirement because alot of retirement money went down with the stock market, and that woould explain Atticus' chart drop. so my point wasn't that people retain it, my point was that people lost it.
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It's a rate, not an amount. In other words, of each pay check, what percent are people saving today. Under the lifecycle wealth hypothesis, savings rates should be going up, not down, after the stock market crash. They're not, because teh bloated marke got people used to a higher standard of living than they could/should afford, and now are dissaving by drawing down investments and/or refinancing and taking on more debt to support that increasedly spendy lifestyle.
But WTF are we blaming any president for it? The incentives to save remain, and, if anything, have become more attractive. People don't save for the same reason they overeat--they're part of the me, now, generation.
