4 ms·

I believe this works in the Netherlands because they have a robust pension system. Disincentivizing savings without having a good system in place for retiremen

• kadenshep 9y ago
  >Disincentivizing savings without having a good system in place for retirement would break a country in a single generation. We have the former without the latter in the U.S. already.
  • ataturk 9y ago
    Americans are getting screwed some many ways that it is hard to even keep count! We have high taxes, high inflation, and low interest rates on non speculative assets. It's the absolute worst of all worlds. As far as predicting the mess in 2008, I had an account with NetBank which was the very first domino to fall. So that was my heads up. I moved a ton of money into Money Market funds. Then MM funds almost broke the dollar and would have it not been for TARP or whatever bailouts took place there. We were probably only hours away from total collapse at one point. The problem is that since that shock, our system hasn't ever really recovered. We never prosecuted enough bad actors, never wound down all the insolvent companies, never owned up to the mistakes. Thus, it's going to happen again and be worse. But spare me the "We're great in the Netherlands thanks to our socialist pension system." Pensions in the US are nearly universally under-funded and I don't even want to imagine how high your taxes must be in the Netherlands to avoid insolvency.
  • olympus 9y ago
    Savings in the US are not quite disincentivised, but not actively encouraged. You're only taxed on interest, the principal in a savings account isn't taxed.
    • aaronblohowiak 9y ago
      401k, IRA, 529, etc. all encourage savings.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]