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The definition of "we" and "survive" needs to be established clearly first and I don't think all those fancy graphs and market trends will define them. There's

• linuxftw 8y ago
  I agree. It's I don't care if banks survive as long as I'm not negatively impacted. I'm sure the banks feel the same way. Survive also doesn't mean 'maintain standard of living.' The government has a surefire way of propping up the wealthy: Inflation. Savings accounts lose purchasing power (normal person) and the means of production gets more expensive (wealthy).
  • travisoneill1 8y ago
    This is backwards. Inflation destroys the value of debt. Poor tend to be borrowers and rich tend to be lenders, so inflation is an equalizer.
    • clairity 8y ago
      no, the wealthy keep their capital in assets with above average returns. the rest of us get to pay for that with below average returns, fees, and inflation.
      • travisoneill1 8y ago
        Yes that would explain them being rich. But I'm sure you have heard the phrase "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." What I am talking about here is debt. Owe money on your house? Inflation makes you owe less. Lend money to someone buying a house? Inflation means you get paid back less.
        • rabidrat 8y ago
          It's only "less" if your wages also inflate. But your food and housing prices increase on the leading edge of inflation, and wages lag. And often they never catch up.
          • chimeracoder 8y ago
            > It's only "less" if your wages also inflate. But your food and housing prices increase on the leading edge of inflation, and wages lag. And often they never catch up. Except that's not true. If you're a debtor, the effects of inflation decreasing your debt in real dollars is orders of magnitude more consequential than the increase in your expenses, and that's even assuming your wages don't increase (which is generally not true either).
        • betterunix2 8y ago
          Inflation is typically priced into loans in the form of higher interest rates; this is why bond prices fall (i.e. yields rise) when the inflation rate increases (or more precisely, when people believe inflation will be higher in the future). Also priced in is the uncertainty about future inflation, which is one reason why central banks work to maintain a stable rate of inflation.
      • kgwgk 8y ago
        How does the math work out if the wealthy have much more capital than "the rest of us"? Why have you chosen to keep your capital in assets with below-average return if you know which are the better assets?
        • zimablue 8y ago
          Better individual assets or better management of your assets are both gated. Privately held companies, hedge funds, financial managers. The guy who argues the parent point is Piketty in the book Capital.
          • longerthoughts 8y ago
            On top of the access issue is the financial knowledge gap between people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Not only are people limited in what they can invest in, but they might not even be investing at all.
    • danhak 8y ago
      Most wealthy people borrow significantly even if they have high net worth (think mortgage on multi-million dollar home or investment property). Inflation helps them while they put their assets to work elsewhere. And it helps them far more than it helps some poor person with a few thousand in credit card debt.
      • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        But the wealthy have more assets than debt, so they have more losses than gains from inflation. Sure, they may gain $100,000 on their house, but they lose $1 million on their bond portfolio.
        • deleted 8y ago
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        • longerthoughts 8y ago
          But inflation also implies economic growth which generally raises the value of equity holdings. The impact of inflation is dependent upon asset allocation.
          • chimeracoder 8y ago
            > But inflation also implies economic growth Inflation does not imply growth in real GDP, no. > which generally raises the value of equity holdings. The impact of inflation is dependent upon asset allocation. Ceteris paribus, inflation hurts debtholders (who, incidentally, tend to be wealthy), and it helps debtors (who, incidentally, tend to be poorer).
            • nonbel 8y ago
              Inflation hits prices before wages. Wage increases due to inflation always lag the price increases of the food/shelter/etc people need to buy. Is this controversial?
              • 8y ago
• travisoneill1 8y ago
  The data doesn't support your conclusion. Almost nobody keeps all their assets in a savings account. What you should be looking at is net worth. https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/ https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/
  • izacus 8y ago
    What exactly are they keeping their assets in? A house that they can't sell and make that worth liquid? A retirement account they cannot withdraw without huge costs and compromising old age? Where else?
    • icedchai 8y ago
      Uh, you ever hear of taxable investment accounts? Online brokerages, mutual funds, etc?
      • maxander 8y ago
        The average HNer probably has, yes. The average American, quite possibly not.
      • metalliqaz 8y ago
        The number of Americans who have any significant investments that aren't part of a retirement account is small.
      • deleted 8y ago
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      • izacus 8y ago
        People with < 6000$ on their savings account? Most of the population? Very very unlikely.
        • icedchai 8y ago
          I'm pretty sure "most of the population" has at least seen advertisements for ETrade. Probably too complicated for them though. That's why they'll be working until 85 or eating cat food in retirement...
• deleted 8y ago
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• crazynick4 8y ago
  If you have an extreme health care incident, why pay the bill? Sure it would hurt your credit score not to, but if it's between that and tens/hundreds of thousands, I think it is worth it to take the hit for 7 years. I know health care workers who give this 'unofficial' advice to their patients and I've had friends and family members do the same thing - people who had no health insurance but still got health care and paid nothing for it.
  • ASalazarMX 8y ago
    Would this, for example, for cancer? Refusing to pay your first treatment might make access to subsequent treatments harder.
    • crazynick4 8y ago
      Is it legal for a doctor to refuse treatments that may cost you your life? I understand that an insurance company may refuse to insure you due to preexisting conditions (or at least they were able to at some point), but I think insurance is different from showing up at a hospital in the midst of a life or death situation.
      • notfromhere 8y ago
        Hospitals have a legal obligation to stabilize you in the U.S. So they'll treat your heart attack, but they're under no obligation to offer you free cancer treatment.
      • PeterisP 8y ago
        In general, yes. You don't refuse emergency procedures (i.e. you're going to die right here right now without it), but life-prolonging procedures (e.g. without this procedure you have a 50% chance to die within 4 months) are a different thing. And for diseases like cancer, if you show up when you're about to die, then there's nothing much can be done; they can put you in coma on life-support to eke out some more "life" but you can't cure it anymore. And it's worth noting that in medicine there's no fundamental boundary for 'may cost you your life', or if it is, the bar is very low. Taking an x-ray may cost you your life. Not taking an x-ray may cost you your life. Dentist's anaesthesia may cost you your life. Almost every noteworthy medical decision (including purely preventative things or running tests) has some life-or-death effect, there's only a difference in quantity, not a difference in kind. There are no life-saving procedures, there are only life-prolonging procedures. A widespread recommendation that patients meeting criteria X, Y and Z should do a particular diagnostic test will result in deaths of some people, and a widespread recommendation that they shouldn't will also result in deaths of some other people, and the main question is which number of deaths is larger. On a large scale, medicine is mainly a resource allocation problem - almost everyone could and would live longer if we allocated more care towards them personally or towards that condition, however, the "price/performance ratio" of such procedures is very, very different. There are things like stopping bleeding from trauma, which are very cheap and prolong your life by as many years as you'd otherwise live, and there are drugs and procedures with a six figure price that give an average survival benefit of a few weeks over much cheaper alternatives; and for most of people who'll die in hospitals today we could extend their life by at least one day with extra care; it's just that it's currently physically impossible to do everything for everyone, even if our economy consisted 100% of doctors and nurses caring for each other, because now we can (attempt to) do so much more. So there has to be a line drawn somewhere; some care will inevitably have to be refused to some people, and the only debate can be about the criteria - whether it's medical criteria (e.g. being refused to be considered for an organ transplant since you'll likely die soon anyway for other reasons, and that transplant can give much more years to someone else), or the ability to pay for certain procedures, or some other ways. On a large scale metrics like $/QALY (price for a quality-adjusted life year) make sense, but on small scale it's difficult to judge.
• noobermin 8y ago
  The distance between the average and the median is staggering. This should be why you always should be suspicious when someone uses an average as a good statistic for wealth or income in the US.
  • Brybry 8y ago
    I assume you intend "mean" instead of "average". Mean, median, and mode are all averages and a lot of statistics actually refer to median when they say "average".
    • noobermin 8y ago
      I suppose. That's why I referred to the median and average as a "statistic" and distinct, although that may be just the way I've been used to talking about it.
    • leetcrew 8y ago
      really? in my experience, people who even know the difference between "mean" and "median" always use "average" in the sense of "mean".
• CNJ7654 8y ago
  Agreed! "Survive" is definitely not the right term here. Will I survive the next financial crisis? Yes, without any doubt. No matter what the financial crisis is, I will still be able provide myself food, water, shelter and security.
• profalseidol 8y ago
  > There's a lot of people that ended up bankrupt, in a bottomless depression, turned to drug abuse or committed suicide. Ain't this what Americans say when describing Communism?