[Sixstrings]

I define abject poverty as lacking shelter and sufficient food to stave off hunger. By this simple measure, abject poverty is rising in the U.S. even as Wall Street pockets billions in bonuses, the government squanders $2 billion a day in Afghanistan and trillions more on toxic mortgage securities and other bailouts of the Power Elites. ...

The reality is better captured by this item from BusinessWeek's December 16 issue:Almost half (46%) of 2,148 consumers surveyed recently said they weren't confident they could come up with $2,000 within a month in a crisis--from savings, family, friends, credit cards or other sources.
Even among those earning $100,000 to $149,000 a year. almost 25% doubted they could raise it, according to the survey conducted by research firm TNS with academics from Harvard Business School and Dartmouth College. "We wanted to know if people could fix a broken car or furnace," says Harvard finance professor Peter Tufano, who adds that most studies he has seen measure "how much cash people have... not how much they can access." ...

.Let's follow the idea that 25% of households earning $100,000+ can't lay their hands on a meager $2,000. First off, only about 20% of households earn above $100K. Most households make do on a sum closer to the national median of $46,000. --snip--

Or it may just be that the majority of Americans are essentially one paycheck or unemployment check away from homelessness and hunger, and thus the social networks of most households are populated by others in the same general economic situation.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec09/poverty12-09.html

This is pretty startling, especially the statistic that a quarter of the 100k-150k households couldn't come up with two grand in an emergency.

What this means is that literally half of this nation is in really deep trouble if their car breaks down, or they need a root canal, the furnace goes on the fritz, you name it. No wonder everything is just in time delivery and so few people stock up on food -- they can't afford to plan any further than the next paycheck.

[kiwichick]

hard to believe

what do people spend all their wages on?

[SeaGypsy]

hard to believe. what do people spend all their wages on?

Debt. (& keeping up with the Jones's)

[davep]

The 25% figure for those earning over 100k is very scary. People must have next to no disposable income.

Boy am I glad I sold up, got out of the rat race and bought the doomstead cash.

Now I've re-entered the world of work, I'm able to put away $3k more or less every month (given I don't have the overheads of most people earning what I do, and really couldn't be bothered keeping up with the Joneses).

What's the point of earning good money if you're just going to waste it?

[Revi]

We could probably come up with the 2 grand, but we realized the other day that we are never going to be able to buy a new car. The finances won't allow it. We are selling our electric car to fix the foundation. It would be nice to hang on to it, but we can't afford to do it.

We are not at the bottom, but we can see it from here.

[MarkJ]

hard to believe. what do people spend all their wages on?

Many of our employees, tenants and customers spend their wages on a variety of things including mortgage, rent, property taxes, heat, hot water, electric, water/sewer, insurance, maintenance, repairs, lawn tractors, snowblowers, furniture, outdoor furniture, stainless barbecues, landscaping, satellite television, digital cable, digital phone, high speed internet, pay-per-view, cell phones, iPhones, iPods, Crackberries, GPS, voice/text/data plans, pre-paid voice/text/dat plans, desktop PCs, notebook PCs, netbooks, LCD/Plasma televisions, BluRay players, digital cameras, gaming systems, games, movies, cars, trucks, SUVs, snowmobiles, quads, boats, waverunners, motorcycles, gas, fast food, take-out, delivery, entertainment, lottery tickets, scratch-off tickets, beer, liquor, cigarettes, hunting/fishing/sporting gear, buy-here-pay-here vehicle financing, rent-to-own furniture, appliance, electronics, Christmas shopping.


When they need $1,000 plus to replace a fuel tank, $3,000 plus to replace a furnace or $5,000 plus to replace a boiler, they cry poverty. Once the crying is over, they have to max out credit lines, apply for high interest credit, barter, sell off assets, pawn assets, stop paying other bills, borrow from friends/relatives/co-workers etc.

Many apply for HEAP, Emergency HEAP or the Furnace/Boiler Maintenance/Repair/Replacement program.


Many of our lower income employees, tenants and customers have zero savings, zero credit, zero assets and tons of past and current debt, so they often can barely afford their rent and utilities let alone the unexpected like vehicle repairs, tires, tickets, towing/impound fees, repossession etc. They'll stop paying rent, electric, gas, cable, internet and phone etc to survive.

Often when their vehicles break down, they can't afford to repair them, get them inspected, nor buy another vehicle, so they end up losing their jobs and they're evicted from their apartments.

We just had a heating customer that borrowed $6,000 dollars for a new boiler from a co-worker at loanshark interest rates since they've spent several thousand dollars on Christmas shopping.

[Fishman]

Solution
Disclaimer: I don't make any money on this course, but did go through it. Best thing I ever did to prep for bad financial times, peok oil, etc.

[TreeFarmer]

Dave Ramsey is THE MAN when it comes to personal finance. I've read his books and listened to his radio show, I've never heard him give bad advice. He's given advice people did not want to hear, but not bad advice.

TF

[PrestonSturges]

Always maintain a war chest sufficient to sue the pants off someone.

[PrestonSturges]

Seriously though, besides the obviosu stupidity and drug abuse, a lot of people have had their credit and savings ruined by medical bills.

We read a bunch of credit reports from potential renters, and every one of them had judgments against them for medical bills.

We finally rented to someone with bad credit due to medical bills but who seemed to be OK, and he has been a good tenant.

But there weren't any applicants without bad credit because of medical problems.

[davep]

Seriously though, besides the obviosu stupidity and drug abuse, a lot of people have had their credit and savings ruined by medical bills. We read a bunch of credit reports from potential renters, and every one of them had judgments against them for medical bills.
We finally rented to someone with bad credit due to medical bills but who seemed to be OK, and he has been a good tenant. But there weren't any applicants without bad credit because of medical problems.

That wouldn't happen in the UK. Ok, you wouldn't want to see their teeth, but that's a minor issue.

[crude_intentions]

In a stable monetary system under consumption to produces savings is what builds a middle class lifestyle. Our current fiat system does everything in a its power to discourage savings. The middle class way of life has become one of perptual debt slavery. Homes, Cars, College educations. People used to be able to save up to afford these things! Now how can they when the prices of these goods services rise faster than wages and the interest on savings is so low. In the 1950's a man could save his money while renting a house; until he could afford the 60-90% down he would need to get a mortage from the bank. If he could even get the mortgage. The PTB have turned America is a place where you can buy anything you want but never own it.

[TreeFarmer]

I believe we can lay a lot of the current problems at the feet of congress who created the Federal Reserve and then gave it some conflicting charges.

For example, the Fed is charged with both maintaining employment and protecting the value of the dollar. Now, the policies that would maintain employment are often opposite from the ones that would protect the value of the dollar.

With overly low interest rates for 15+ years now it seems that the Fed went for employment at the expense of the value of the dollar.

A side detriment of this policy was that, with low interest rates, it was no longer worthwhile for many people to save as the interest on savings was too low. So, many people decided to spend their money, and go into debt to spend more money, rather than save. This in turn created a viscous circle of ever higher prices as more and more money chased a finite amount of goods. Of course, we all see how that turned out.

TF

[frankthetank]

Maybe they are the smart ones? $2000 isn't going to buy you a loaf of bread pretty soon!

I could see having cash around for property taxes, but other then that...i'd go buy stuff with the money or enjoy it... saving away for a rainy day just isn't in my book... you've got to have a lot of money to play in this casino.

[2cher]

I make 22,000 a year, I put over 5,000 a year away in savings.

Some people are just to stupid for their own good.

[eastbay]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... page_2.htm


The link.... from early November.

2cher, I would guess you're happier all around than someone earning $100,000 and spending $105,000.

[2cher]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_46/c4155btw117989_page_2.htm


The link.... from early November.

2cher, I would guess you're happier all around than someone earning $100,000 and spending $105,000.

Well ya, but if the person had any brains they would live on 30,000 and and save 70,000 Shoot I would be as happy as a clam living on 30,000.

Of course this is what is really wrong

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1503621947.html
$18950.00 for a one bedroom apartment?

WTF?!?

[FairMaiden]

ch2er...either you are quoting net income (when we usually talk about gross) or you live a very meager life.

In Canada, 22000 would net you are $18K after taxes, CPP, EI, etc. If you saved $5 of it, that would leave you just $1080 to live on. Depending on your accomodations, shared/rural/etc...you would have very little left for "life" or "entertainment". If you died tomm, I guess that $5K can benefit your heirs but it would probably be considered a waste

I used to be very frugal. But there has to be a balance between living for today and living for tomm.

I think the scarier part of the story is that ppl can't even use credit to come up with this money...that is more telling than not having the savings to begin with...

[Tyler_JC]

Of course this is what is really wrong

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1503621947.html
$18950.00 for a one bedroom apartment?

WTF?!?

Oh the irony! That area used to be called "Hell's Kitchen".

Real estate in Manhattan is expensive because lots of people want to live there and are willing to sacrifice everything else to do so. Rent control also helps to push up rents on the free apartments as well.

As for the half of American incapable of coming up with 2 grand in a crisis, Rent-A-Center has over 3500 store locations. We have millions of people renting their couches. This was unheard of twenty years ago.

Can you imagine missing a few payments and having the repo men confiscate your sofa?

I live in a three bedroom apartment with a couple guys and every single piece of furniture was either picked up off the street or abandoned by previous tenants. Every day another perfectly usable chair, couch, desk, etc. is left on the sidewalks. This country could probably go another decade without importing a single new piece of furniture without running into any kind of shortage.

The effective interest rate on these rent-to-own operations is like 30%. People need to stop signing on to these idiotic agreement.

I don't have any numbers on this, but I think the rent-to-own/pawn shop industry is helping to keep the working poor in poverty.

[PrestonSturges]

In a stable monetary system under consumption to produces savings is what builds a middle class lifestyle. Our current fiat system does everything in a its power to discourage savings. The middle class way of life has become one of perptual debt slavery. Homes, Cars, College educations. People used to be able to save up to afford these things! Now how can they when the prices of these goods services rise faster than wages and the interest on savings is so low. In the 1950's a man could save his money while renting a house; until he could afford the 60-90% down he would need to get a mortage from the bank. If he could even get the mortgage. The PTB have turned America is a place where you can buy anything you want but never own it.

People bought duplexes or maybe converted their house to a duplex when the kids grew, rented the duplex to one of their kids and spouse, and when the kids moved away, they rented it for retirement income.