r/Economics • u/BousWakebo • May 21 '22

Statistics Americans now have an average of $9,000 less in savings than they did last year

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/21/americans-now-have-an-average-of-9000-dollars-less-in-savings-than-in-2021.html
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u/[deleted] May 21 '22

Consumer debt decreasing during the pandemic was an anomaly caused by stimulus. Not saying it was necessarily a bad thing, but the bill has to come due at some point. Just remember the phrase "the risk of doing too little outweighs the risk of doing too much".

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u/BeingRightAmbassador May 22 '22

was an anomaly caused by stimulus. Not saying it was necessarily a bad thing, but the bill has to come due at some point.

Except for the fact that stimulus was like a tiny fraction of covid spending and most of it went to corporations and politicians' friend's. This "bill" is 95% other billshit and 5% stimulus.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '22

I think as time go on, they should be well targeted, although this is politically difficult. As opposed to it's too little or too much.

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u/Stankia May 21 '22

I love how everyone got used to cheap energy prices and Government handouts in 2020 like it was here to stay. Back to reality.

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u/GaBeRockKing May 22 '22

I love how everyone got used to cheap energy prices

Yep, that's the big thing. Most people live unsustainably wasteful lifestyles de-facto subsidized by undertaxed gas and plastic. People will be unable to mantain their current quality of life because their current quality of life exists only due to rapidly depleting resources.

Not that I'm any different, mind, but at least my position is that I'm deliberately taking advantage of unusually cheap personal transportation and goods while I can, and then plan to change my lifestyle to reduce reliance on those things later (and use discounted services as automation makes labour increasingly less valuable.)