Comments on: Why Americans Don’t Save

By: fivecentnickel.com

fivecentnickel.com — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 03:13:39 +0000

Weekly Roundup – 04/07/06

Another week, another weekly roundup… I’m a bit late this time, as I’m out of town and writing this from a hotel room. Anyway, here are some articles from the MoneyBlogNetwork and beyond that caught my eye this past week. Be sure to s…

By: yowchuan

yowchuan — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 05:41:48 +0000

Over here in Malaysia, the introduction of lifetime-waived-annual-fee credit cards, the 9-years car loan (hire and purchase) being the order of the day, and various other “attractive” borrowing instrutments from the bank, it is definitely making the average consumers spend more of their future’s money and throw aside their responsibilities they have for their own retirement.

We have Employee’s Pension Fund (EPF), but it’s barely enough, with the statistics telling us 70% percent of pensioners gobbled up their entire EPF in just 3 years of their retiring life.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:32:45 +0000

I share some of the same concerns as Vlad. Are the people that are saving for their retirement going to be forced to pay for those that aren’t saving? Or are we going to force our children and grandchildren to finance our comfy retirements through intergenerational transfers? Unlike Vlad, I don’t have another country to flee to.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:04:28 +0000

Save??? What a silly idea! There’s always tomorrow, especially when I want what I want … and I want it NOW! And there’s always the plastic. We are a society of consumption, just look at the average credit card debt. Delayed gratification? who needs it! I am very worried. And I’m disgusted with Congress and the way it has spent any Social Security surplus. It’s mostly gone. Great example of failure to serve the nation’s citizens.

By: TADollar

TADollar — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 20:29:17 +0000

I agree, it’s all a matter of priorities. People must choose to save their money instead of spending it on non-necessities. I just wrote about this topic.

By: Vlad Stojanovski

Vlad Stojanovski — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:20:51 +0000

When I retire, I may be forced to leave my beloved U.S. of A., because the majority of the populace will want to get their hands on my savings to pay for their social security benefits. It’s a sad sad thing … We are coming to a point where this is unavoidable, since 50% of the people pay almost 100% of federal taxes. Once this reaches 51%, tax reform will not be possible. How do we get our country back?

By: John

John — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:04:27 +0000

There aren’t many good excuses for people not to save. I believe we have the worlds seconds highest per capita income in the world. Too many people are spending above their means. I think having a plump ira is a status symbol in the pf blogger world…

By: The Real Returns

The Real Returns — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:08:19 +0000

Two words: Social Security.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:54:43 +0000

It’s a similar situation in the UK at the moment. It has been suggested that most people under 25 face retirement in poverty if they don’t begin to save or invest more.

I agree with you entirely, most people could afford to put more away, it might mean a sacrifice here and there but it is possible.

But for those who struggle with their finances there aren’t many (if any) where they can go and get free advice as to how to save and where to put their savings etc.