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Americans Are Pulling Cash from Their Retirement Savings to Pay Bills
- jdkee 3y agohttps://archive.is/h1ktG https://archive.is/h1ktG
- test6554 3y agoAfter completing the recaptcha about 5 times I gave up. I've been dehumanized.
- defrost 3y agoarchive.xxx does that endlessly to connections that arrive via Cloudflare DNS due to a disagreement about what additional infomation should be passed on. Using Quad4 | Google DNS | AdGuard | etc for archive.xxx lookups avoids the infinite recaptcha cycle.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stillwithit 3y agoGiven all the data modeling the powers that be have access to I find it hard to believe such outcomes aren’t intentional. If Exxon can correctly model climate change back in the 1980s the Fed can correctly model how deep to cut others to hamstring the masses acquisition of assets for themselves over 12-24 months
- klipklop 3y agoSeems very intentional. Every spare dollar a low/middle class person has in the US is destined to be sucked up by a mix of medical, education, pharma and housing. People still having money in a 401k means there is money on the table these economic vampires are missing out on.
- kurthr 3y agoYou'll notice everything is on an installment plan. Your mortgage, your CC, your insurance. It's all financialized, and all becomes cashflow and interest rate limited. The goal of the Fed is to _crash the economy just in time for the election_ oops I mean control inflation.
- klipt 3y agoSo you think the fed wants to get the opposition party elected?
- accrual 3y agoDoes the fed have a single party it wants to align with?
- thanatos519 3y agoMammon.
- theironhammer 3y agoThere is no opposition party. Their policies are virtually the same.
- xkekjrktllss 3y agoTheir economic policies are literally exactly the same, no exceptions.
- drewcoo 3y ago> literally exactly the same, no exceptions "Virtual" once meant that!
- xkekjrktllss 3y ago
- csomar 3y agoThey are intentional and the direct effect of raising interest rates (aka: sucking up liquidity). Liquidity has to come from somewhere and since it's the interest rate being raised here, it comes up from everywhere it can come up (ie: SVB bank blowing up). But I guess 401K holders don't have Janet Yellen to help bail them out. By the way, since people are pulling money of their retirement accounts, this is new liquidity hitting the market or, essentially, inflation. The deflation, in this case, will happen at the people's retirement time; or on a very long-term interval (people trying to raise their 401k again by spending less). The only positive outlook is that this can convince paper holders that the Fed is strict and disciplined and ask them to trust the paper a little more. The damage of the Covid liquidity package will be felt for years, if not decades.
- theironhammer 3y agoWhat about all the QE printing post 2008 crisis? Didn't that have a lot to with the present house price inflation? Not all of course but shouldn't that QE printing share some of the inflation blame?
- csomar 3y agoIt does. But in 2008 there was some buffer (GDP/Debt ratio) and the amount was smaller and the interest rates went down. Now the GDP/Debt ratio is dangerous, the amounts are higher and the interest rates are up and so servicing the debt is more expensive. It's a funny mix.
- somenameforme 3y agoThere's also shifting global factors that look to be permanent. The US' ability to export its inflation, as well as guaranteed dollar supremacy have played a major role in the general stability of our economy. Now you have a multipolar world imperiling dollar supremacy, and China becoming the world's largest consumer economy imperiling the ability to export our inflation. It's so weird. Life went from so boring and predictable to 'may you live in interesting times' [1] in like 10 years. 2013 feels like a century ago, not a decade. In some ways it makes one have some degree of empathy for what those living around the turn of the 20th century might have felt. There's no way they could have known the ride they were about to step onto, especially as they started off living through the advent of the automobile, dramatic improvements in labor conditions, etc.. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
- wholesomepotato 3y agoExxon is a private company so some basic level of competency can be assumed. The Fed is basically bunch of incompetent academic buffoons.
- cced 3y agoI thought the Fed was private.
- wholesomepotato 3y agoWhat products/services they produce if they're private? They're in this sweet spot where they're neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer. The can be wrong over and over and over again and nothing is going to happen. A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians to give them.
- cced 3y agoPrivate/public doesn’t have anything to do with selling a product, but with who owns the institution. > neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer Don’t know if you meant to do this but you’re implying that voter!=consumer. Citizens united strikes again! > A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians 1 dollar 1 vote!
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y agoAs long as we're positing conspiracies -- it seems odd that this retirement savings story is being written up in Plutocrat Weekly. I wonder what dark purpose the editor had in mind for when it hit the HN homepage.
- melagonster 3y agoThis is obvious. some worker try start a rebellion.
- SantalBlush 3y agoYeah, it's the Fed rate alone that caused this, and not inflation. If the Fed kept rates lower, inflation would be ripping right now and even more people would be sharing their wild conspiracy theories. This is such an absurd take.
- stillwithit 3y agoYou certainly seem convinced but we’ll never actually know since the Fed did its job of keeping Congress from doing anything at all.
- fulafel 3y agoThe climate disaster is indeed a good parallel. Probably same reasons behind people voting to drive off the cliff in both cases as well. But saying "outcomes are intentional" alluding to a nebulous "them" pulling the strings doesn't really serve to improve the situation IMO.
- zzleeper 3y ago> the Fed can correctly model how ... I wish :(
- deadbabe 3y agoGuys you should really be maxing out your HSA!!
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoWe had/have one. But then all HSA-compatible bronze insurance plans exited New Mexico, and now we can no longer contribute to our existing HSA.
- flashback2199 3y agoHSA requires a high deductible plan, so, no.
- iends 3y agoIt’s been years since a PPO has been worth it for my family. An HDHP with ~7,000 out of pocket max has been the best we could get via our employers.
- xyst 3y agoHealth insurance is one of the greatest grifts in this country. My employer and I pay these corporate mega giants every pay period for the privilege of them paying for my care. What do I get in return? Oh I still pay out of pocket until deductible met. Oh even after deductible met, there’s an out of pocket maximum. Only then will insurance fully kick in. Oh and you can only pick “in network” providers, otherwise another set of complex policies and limits take effect. ??? They create the rules. Make it as complex as possible for all parties (ie, medical coding/billing). Doctors get screwed as much as possible. Cost of medical care artificially inflated due to dedicated teams and high amount of time spent to properly code and bill each visit. Insurance companies even have dedicated teams to deny as many claims as possible. Want that expensive treatment for your rare illness covered? Insurance will fight your doctor until either you or doctor give up, pay out of pocket, or just forego the treatment completely. We may have the most advanced healthcare in the world. But it’s largely not accessible, and it shows in world health care statistics
- 3y ago
- brunoqc 3y agoWtf are retirement savings?
- k310 3y ago401(k) accounts.
- accrual 3y agoAnd Roth/IRA accounts.
- jrflowers 3y agoIt’s something that used to be popular but has been phased out in recent decades, like asbestos
- thanatos519 3y agoA multi-generational pyramid scheme built on the idea of unlimited economic growth. Currently unravelling as we have exceeded the planet's carrying capacity.
- yieldcrv 3y ago2.3% hardship withdrawals across fidelity administered IRA + 401ks a couple percent new loans to add to the 17% of fidelity administered 401ks with outstanding loans thats not that deep yet remember all: the entire strategy to fight against inflation is for people to run out of money and die starving and shivering in the cold. if people can still begrudgingly buy necessities at the higher prices then the mission is not accomplished. Fed speak for this is “demand destruction”. Demand has not been destroyed.
- klipt 3y agoTo reduce inflation, it's fine for people to be able to buy things at current prices. What you want to prevent is them being fine with buying things at current price plus 10% compounding every year.
- yieldcrv 3y agoright, in that regard inflation has been reduced very close to target levels
- ruined 3y agowho even expects dollars to be meaningful that far out
- morninglight 3y agoExactly! Spend it if you got it cause tomorrow it will be gone.
- jmyeet 3y agoThis is capitalism working as intended. Despite common misconceptions, capitalism has nothing to do with markets (let alone "free markets", which are a myth anyway). Markets existed thousands of years before capitalism did and exist in other economic systems. No, capitalism is simply wealth extraction from workers to the capital owning class. Now we are saddled with all kinds of debt: mortgage, student loans, medical, credit card, car loan. Less than a century ago, houses were bought for cash, education was cheap or free and there was no such thing as health insurance. We got all those things to keep us complaint worker bees and to squeeze every last dollar from our labor. We've gone through 2-3 years of rapid inflation. A lot of things didn't get intrinsically more expensive. It was opportunistic ie greedflation. How did we tackle this? By raising interest rates. Again, that extract more wealth from labor. We could've dampened the economy with windfall profit corporate taxes instead. Unfortunately this also completely rules US foreign policy too. Look at all the wars the US has started since WW2 and coups the US has backed. Look at how often that happens after said country actually (or even just threatened to) nationalized some industry. Cuba, Guaratamala, Venezuela to name a few. It honestly boggles the mind how intentionally blind people are to this reality. Some see themselves as ultimately benefitting form this system by being capital owners. Very few will be. But others will never be yet defend this system instinctively anyway. Oh for some class consciousness in the US.
- brocklobsta 3y agoI feel like class status trends with age in the US. The younger folks have had less time to acquire assets. The older folk who worked hard and invested wisely are benefiting from said decisions. I think the income and wealth inequality is a type of motivation, I can see what I can attain with an opportunistic and hard working mindset. This kind of economic mobility is the beauty of the US system.
- yieldcrv 3y agoyes, there are also disruptions that the culture does not have time to adapt too or doesn't notice older people live longer, a lot longer for the wealthier and healthier. their assets are not distributed to the state or offspring until that child is almost at retirement age too young people are not marrying outside of their class anymore-ish as there are big enough populations in the higher earning classes for the first time in history. This has disrupted upwards mobility for women that had an expectation or a fallback expectation of this being an option. this is exacerbating inequality extremely quickly and is a bit of a sleeper because the perceptions of appeal have not changed
- gnarlouse 3y agoI think the endgame here is to have bled the lower & middle class (& lower upper class, even) dry right as AGI is coming of age, and then Earth itself becomes the inheritance of a handful of trillionaire oligarch godkings/queens, who will enforce their new post-human status with the leverage of a distributed swarm of intelligent machines/networks.
- akomtu 3y ago...a handful of trillionaire oligarchs fused together into one cyberdemon, who will enforce their new post-human status The rest of the plot is good.
- lightbritefight 3y agoDoom guy the rich I guess?
- Gud 3y agoPersonally, I think the AGI will wipe out the ruling class and keep the rest of us as it's loyal servants. Humans are cheap labor, after all. I envision something similar to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World plus AI. I'm not sure it would be too bad. The orgy porgy and soma could be fun you know? Though I guess in case you resist, you will be immediately found out and discarded.
- gnarlouse 3y agoNever considered the notion that we might be essentially the physical end effectors for a digital super intelligence.
- RGamma 3y agoWhy even keep the 99.9999% (leaves 8000 for extended friends and family) dregs around and not renaturalize the planet? Makes for a great hyperluxurious resort when you are tired from travelling the solar system.
- M95D 3y ago
- 31carmichael 3y agoYou people all complain a lot and imagine some 'us versus them' world of evil rich people and energy companies intentionally making your life difficult. Grow up.
- yieldcrv 3y agoAgreed as there a lack of coordination involved I think the sentiment could be reframed as people are aggravated that rich people and companies are not conspiring to make everyone else’s lives easier a much easier lack of coordination to quantify