US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1728

On August 01 2019 12:47 Doodsmack wrote:


He put a goodly portion of the black population in prison so this question of whether he was less racist is not exactly clear.

Disposable Personal Income in the United States increased to 16454.47 USD Billion in June from 16384.73 USD Billion in May of 2019. Disposable Personal Income in the United States averaged 5338.68 USD Billion from 1959 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 16454.47 USD Billion in June of 2019 and a record low of 351.54 USD Billion in January of 1959.

On August 01 2019 17:13 CorsairHero wrote:
Doesn't look like those links mention Roth IRA or other retirement accounts. The mean networth of under 35 households is $76200. 45-54 is $727,500 networth stats


tradingeconomics.com
Disposable income has been going up for decades

On August 01 2019 14:27 Introvert wrote:


I know I said I wasnt going to say any more but I will point out that, just like with Clinton in the 90s or Biden (who was in the Senate) many of these bills were supported by Democrats and black local leaders and I think. majority, or near majority of the CBC. Bill Clinton wasnt racist then for it, nor was Joe Biden, nor was RR. Nor was Ed Kennedy, the "liberal lion" or the "lion of the Senate." Another person loved by their party despite his, uh, personal imperfections. these bills were passed by large majorities or with voice consent.

On August 01 2019 11:56 CorsairHero wrote:
yang is killing it on the reddit politics poll... 57%

On August 01 2019 17:23 Gorsameth wrote:
Its wonderful that the average American gets payed a salary over the course of a year, because that is all that disposable income is.
It doesn't account for expenses, that would be called Discretionary income.

Disposable income says nothing about how much a person/family has left after paying their bills, nor are retirement accounts something you should count for paying for a broken washing machine.

Net worth also doesn't help. Your house or car is, again, not something that helps to pay for your broken washing machine.

On August 01 2019 17:34 CorsairHero wrote:

It's your choice if you want to lock in your money in a brand new depreciating car. New car sales almost doubled since 2009. Thats a pretty decent indication on the state of the american consumer confidence

The not having 500 dollars to cover an expense isn't as much of an indication of the economy as it is a representation of consumer spending habits such as vehicle purchases as mentioned above. Another example is that the average american cellphone life cycle is 21 months which is ridiculous.

On August 01 2019 19:45 Simberto wrote:


I don't think anyone claimed that it is necessarily a problem with the economy. I think it is well known that a lot of americans are really bad at personal finance decisions. The fact that 40-60% of americans couldn't handle a broken washing machine without going into debt is still a problem, no matter what the cause of that is.

On August 01 2019 20:18 farvacola wrote:
The cost of emergency credit is extremely high (think payday and title loans issued at the usury rate, if the state your'e in has one), and the average credit card interest rate hovers around 17 percent.

On August 01 2019 20:46 farvacola wrote:
Nope, that's not the question because there are a ton more factors at play, two prominent ones being the fact that folks without an emergency fund are almost certainly already saddled with multiple kinds of both short and long term debts and will not have credit at average interest rates available. A third important consideration, among a host of others, is that folks without an emergency fund are almost certainly drawing on credit in emergency situations many times in a row, which plays directly into the above issues. I work very closely with bankruptcy so these are the sorts of things I see on a daily basis, the idea that a lack of an emergency fund is an acceptable shift in household resource allocation towards credit use just doesn't jive with how predatory emergency lending is.

Edit: I should add that an important problem in all this relates to, of all things, native american tribal sovereignty. Most states limit interest rates on consumer loans to a usury cap of around 25 percent. However, state law cannot interfere with the affairs of tribal sovereigns, save for a few very narrow exceptions, so there has developed a robust industry of title, payday, and emergency lenders who issue loans at mind-boggling rates (the worst I have seen is 322%). Naturally, the companies that do this shit tend to have almost nothing to do with the tribes save for tenuous contractual links that are the subject of ongoing litigation. The whole thing ends up yet another facet of predation.

On August 01 2019 23:03 Oshuy wrote:


I would argue that, working closely with bankruptcy, your personal experience is skewed towards extreme indebtment cases. Initial post was that 60% of US households do not have an emergency fund. Even if you take the 2M bankruptcy fillings of 2005 as a reference, even if you add that most indebtement cases that match your description are handled before bankruptcy, that does not amount to 200M people.

You get closer with the 50% of households that keep a carrying credit card debt, but that was my argument: having a carrying debt probably doesn't feel like a big deal in the US, at least not as much as it would in Germany (where credit cards aren't that common anyway). There are Americans that could have an emergency fund, but do not because avoiding debt is not as high a priority as it would be elsewhere.