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Tbh due to social media and the current economic situation , we're creating an entire generation of lottery ticket buyers. Whats the point in saving if the aver

Tbh due to social media and the current economic situation , we're creating an entire generation of lottery ticket buyers. Whats the point in saving if the average job will never let you buy a home in a decent location and the currency is depreciating at an ever increasing pace. Theres a lot of desperate people nowadays so theyre stuck chasing dreams

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
Kinda feel like you’re putting those in the wrong order.
- hiddencost 2y ago
  Nope
  - pc86 2y ago
    Oh great point, you've convinced us :) Why is it a foregone conclusion that these things are only occurring in one direction? What evidence is there to support that (or not)?
    - WrongAssumption 2y ago
      Why didn’t you respond like this to the other comment? They gave no reasoning on order, so why should this person? And why did only this one elicit a response from you?
- hmmmcurious1 2y ago
  There has never been such a pressure to succeed and appear rich as it is today. Social media is at the forefront of this by weaponizing insecurity and keeping up with the joneses. I'd wager a medieval serf had better peace of mind than 90% of people today
  - brk 2y ago
    'Weaponizing insecurity' I'm going to use that. Great summary.
  - inference-lord 2y ago
    Don't worry, with generative AI, everyone's social media will look 10x more awesome and it will all be fake. Even wealthy people will take it to a new level.
    - spacemadness 2y ago
      Social media is already making the wealthy lose their minds. See Elon Musk.
- perrygeo 2y ago
  Exactly this. In my experience, the desperate people with money problems tend to be gamblers. There's a distinctly unhealthy relationship with money that is directly caused by gambling. It distorts their world view to the point where they say shit like "I need to buy more lotto tickets because I need cash" or "today's the lucky day" as they head off to gamble rather than work. All said with a straight face. These people are sick and unwell and need professional care before they destroy their families' lives. It's a disease. Healthy people in similar or worse financial situations do not think or behave this way.
paxys 2y ago
What "current economic situation"? Aside from what the doomers in news media and social media get paid to tell you, what's wrong with the economy, jobs, salaries?
- nytesky 2y ago
  Housing. It’s all about housing. And, related, mortgage rates.
  - travisgriggs 2y ago
    And transportation. And insurance. And energy. And health care.
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      All those payments are in the small three figures maybe a month while rents and mortgages are an order of magnitude higher.
      - danans 2y ago
        In absolute terms rent and mortgage tend to always be higher than the other categories for most people. The more pertinent question is how these have changed on a percentage basis, and relative to each other and median income.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      None of those things are much more expensive in real terms now than they were a decade ago. Housing is, though.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Mortgage rates are totally within reason. Housing prices are not.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
cafard 2y ago
For what it's worth, I can remember "lottery tickets as financial planning" jokes from ca. 1985.
flakeoil 2y ago
In fact, now, thanks to the higher interest rates there is a great possibility to save and earn interest (and compound interest) to buy a house. In addition, thanks to the higher interest rates, it will be harder for everybody to borrow to buy a house so the house prices will not increase as much or even decrease in price. This makes it easier for savers to buy a house. If the central banks can keep from going down to near zero interest rates of course. And I agree with you that younger generations, probably at large due to social media, are not patient enough to get rich by saving.
- zingplex 2y ago
  > And I agree with you that younger generations, probably at large due to social media, are not patient enough to get rich by saving. Speaking as someone in a younger generation, there's a sense that with the climate sword of Damocles dangling overhead and countless people stressing the already fraying hair, perhaps we may not have sufficient time to accumulate any sort of wealth by saving. Perhaps this is just a lack of patience in our generation, but I think it's quite possible there are bigger factors at play.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you (outside of Elon/Zuck type wealth). If it's merely disruptive, then it's just another factor to consider in your investments. Think of it like nuclear weapons. You can't really plan for nuclear war, but you can still take nuclear capability into account when making financial decisions (e.g. China is unlikely to annex Taiwan because of US nukes so investing in TSMC is not a terrible move).
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      > If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you Which is why people are choosing not to bother saving, of course Because they're constantly being told that it is in fact cataclysmic and there's no stopping it
TwitBar 2y ago
This thread is mostly geared toward the west but it’s interesting to see a similar thing (albeit, much worse) happening in China. They’re going through their own version of 2008 with many overqualified graduates entering a smoldering job market. Unsurprisingly lottery participation is at an all time high. It’s bleak.
rsynnott 2y ago
> and the currency is depreciating at an ever increasing pace This seems a _little_ alarmist, no? Assuming you're in a major developed economy, inflation is falling. It's still too high, but 'ever increasing pace' is simply incorrect. And while this high inflation is kinda shocking in modern terms, it's not actually that_ unusual historically. The current US inflation rate is lower than it was for the _entire period_, bar one year in the 80s, between 1971 and 1992, for instance. The housing thing is much more of a legitimate point, but people are over stressing the inflation thing.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  > Assuming you're in a major developed economy, inflation is falling It is really important that people understand that inflation isn't "falling" in the sense that things are getting cheaper A lower inflation rate just means that stuff is getting more expensive more slowly, but it is still getting more expensive Unless we see actual negative inflation, the damage of high inflation rates has already basically been done. Salaries have not kept up and will likely just continue to fall further behind
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Yup, but 'ever increasing pace' means that inflation is rising, not falling.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    > It is really important that people understand that inflation isn't "falling" in the sense that things are getting cheaper "Inflation falling" does not mean "things are getting cheaper" in exactly the same way that "driving backwards" does not mean "reducing speed". Where did this meme even come from, that this is confusing? Did they stop teaching what the definition of the word "inflation" is? Or did they stop teaching about the relationship between measuring values over time and measuring rates of change in those values? Inflation isn't a confusing concept! Are people really confused by it, or is there just a lot of noise about this? > Unless we see actual negative inflation, the damage of high inflation rates has already basically been done. "Negative inflation" is called deflation. That's what happens during a depression. Deflation would be a very bad thing, you do not want deflation. > Salaries have not kept up and will likely just continue to fall further behind This one is just simply not supported by economic data. If you're just talking about the tech industry, then, yeah, maybe. But it's not true of the workforce as a whole.
verteu 2y ago
Some concrete numbers for the curious: I'd estimate that a single individual with zero skills in NYC could get: 1) A receptionist job for $46k/yr (includes health insurance) [1] 2) A shared $2k/mo 2BR Jersey City apartment [2] They'd have a take-home pay of $2960 - $1000/mo (rent) - $1000/mo in other expenses (fairly high estimate IMO). Annual savings (with a traditional IRA) would be about $13k/yr. It's not much, but the savings rate is almost 30% of gross income, and retirement calculators say you'll retire at 65 a multimillionaire. Surprisingly, a daily Starbucks or avocado toast (or forgetting the tax-deductible IRA contribution) really does eat into the savings numbers. And forget about having kids until you get a career upgrade. The major risk is an increase in rent without an increase in wages. Let's investigate: From 2012-2024, rent in Queens (not sure about JC) rose 45% ('only' 3.14% APY) [3]. Over the same period, national wages grew 47% (3.3% APY) [4]. That's good, since our individual earns 3x more wages than they pay rent. Wage growth was even higher among nonmanagers, so I don't think the growth was captured by the 1%. [5] Overall, it looks OK to me, though the margins are thin, and you need to share an apartment. Hard to make it work for a family. I'd be curious to see some others run the numbers. [1] https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=receptionist+-hour+-experience&l=new+york%2C+ny&from=searchOnDesktopSerp&vjk=25716d924b5b518e https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=receptionist+-hour+-experience... [2] https://streeteasy.com/building/3657-kennedy-boulevard-jersey_city/-2r?from_map=1 https://streeteasy.com/building/3657-kennedy-boulevard-jerse... [3] StreetEasy Rent Index: https://streeteasy.com/blog/data-dashboard https://streeteasy.com/blog/data-dashboard , chose Queens as it was most comparable in price to JC [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CEU0500000003 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CEU0500000003 [5] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

Kinda feel like you’re putting those in the wrong order.

hiddencost 2y ago
Nope
- pc86 2y ago
  Oh great point, you've convinced us :) Why is it a foregone conclusion that these things are only occurring in one direction? What evidence is there to support that (or not)?
  - WrongAssumption 2y ago
    Why didn’t you respond like this to the other comment? They gave no reasoning on order, so why should this person? And why did only this one elicit a response from you?
hmmmcurious1 2y ago
There has never been such a pressure to succeed and appear rich as it is today. Social media is at the forefront of this by weaponizing insecurity and keeping up with the joneses. I'd wager a medieval serf had better peace of mind than 90% of people today
- brk 2y ago
  'Weaponizing insecurity' I'm going to use that. Great summary.
- inference-lord 2y ago
  Don't worry, with generative AI, everyone's social media will look 10x more awesome and it will all be fake. Even wealthy people will take it to a new level.
  - spacemadness 2y ago
    Social media is already making the wealthy lose their minds. See Elon Musk.
perrygeo 2y ago
Exactly this. In my experience, the desperate people with money problems tend to be gamblers. There's a distinctly unhealthy relationship with money that is directly caused by gambling. It distorts their world view to the point where they say shit like "I need to buy more lotto tickets because I need cash" or "today's the lucky day" as they head off to gamble rather than work. All said with a straight face. These people are sick and unwell and need professional care before they destroy their families' lives. It's a disease. Healthy people in similar or worse financial situations do not think or behave this way.

paxys 2y ago

What "current economic situation"? Aside from what the doomers in news media and social media get paid to tell you, what's wrong with the economy, jobs, salaries?

nytesky 2y ago
Housing. It’s all about housing. And, related, mortgage rates.
- travisgriggs 2y ago
  And transportation. And insurance. And energy. And health care.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    All those payments are in the small three figures maybe a month while rents and mortgages are an order of magnitude higher.
    - danans 2y ago
      In absolute terms rent and mortgage tend to always be higher than the other categories for most people. The more pertinent question is how these have changed on a percentage basis, and relative to each other and median income.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    None of those things are much more expensive in real terms now than they were a decade ago. Housing is, though.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Mortgage rates are totally within reason. Housing prices are not.
  - sanderjd 2y ago

cafard 2y ago

For what it's worth, I can remember "lottery tickets as financial planning" jokes from ca. 1985.

flakeoil 2y ago

In fact, now, thanks to the higher interest rates there is a great possibility to save and earn interest (and compound interest) to buy a house. In addition, thanks to the higher interest rates, it will be harder for everybody to borrow to buy a house so the house prices will not increase as much or even decrease in price. This makes it easier for savers to buy a house. If the central banks can keep from going down to near zero interest rates of course. And I agree with you that younger generations, probably at large due to social media, are not patient enough to get rich by saving.

zingplex 2y ago
> And I agree with you that younger generations, probably at large due to social media, are not patient enough to get rich by saving. Speaking as someone in a younger generation, there's a sense that with the climate sword of Damocles dangling overhead and countless people stressing the already fraying hair, perhaps we may not have sufficient time to accumulate any sort of wealth by saving. Perhaps this is just a lack of patience in our generation, but I think it's quite possible there are bigger factors at play.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you (outside of Elon/Zuck type wealth). If it's merely disruptive, then it's just another factor to consider in your investments. Think of it like nuclear weapons. You can't really plan for nuclear war, but you can still take nuclear capability into account when making financial decisions (e.g. China is unlikely to annex Taiwan because of US nukes so investing in TSMC is not a terrible move).
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    > If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you Which is why people are choosing not to bother saving, of course Because they're constantly being told that it is in fact cataclysmic and there's no stopping it

TwitBar 2y ago

This thread is mostly geared toward the west but it’s interesting to see a similar thing (albeit, much worse) happening in China. They’re going through their own version of 2008 with many overqualified graduates entering a smoldering job market. Unsurprisingly lottery participation is at an all time high. It’s bleak.

rsynnott 2y ago

> and the currency is depreciating at an ever increasing pace This seems a _little_ alarmist, no? Assuming you're in a major developed economy, inflation is falling. It's still too high, but 'ever increasing pace' is simply incorrect. And while this high inflation is kinda shocking in modern terms, it's not actually that_ unusual historically. The current US inflation rate is lower than it was for the _entire period_, bar one year in the 80s, between 1971 and 1992, for instance. The housing thing is much more of a legitimate point, but people are over stressing the inflation thing.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
> Assuming you're in a major developed economy, inflation is falling It is really important that people understand that inflation isn't "falling" in the sense that things are getting cheaper A lower inflation rate just means that stuff is getting more expensive more slowly, but it is still getting more expensive Unless we see actual negative inflation, the damage of high inflation rates has already basically been done. Salaries have not kept up and will likely just continue to fall further behind
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Yup, but 'ever increasing pace' means that inflation is rising, not falling.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  > It is really important that people understand that inflation isn't "falling" in the sense that things are getting cheaper "Inflation falling" does not mean "things are getting cheaper" in exactly the same way that "driving backwards" does not mean "reducing speed". Where did this meme even come from, that this is confusing? Did they stop teaching what the definition of the word "inflation" is? Or did they stop teaching about the relationship between measuring values over time and measuring rates of change in those values? Inflation isn't a confusing concept! Are people really confused by it, or is there just a lot of noise about this? > Unless we see actual negative inflation, the damage of high inflation rates has already basically been done. "Negative inflation" is called deflation. That's what happens during a depression. Deflation would be a very bad thing, you do not want deflation. > Salaries have not kept up and will likely just continue to fall further behind This one is just simply not supported by economic data. If you're just talking about the tech industry, then, yeah, maybe. But it's not true of the workforce as a whole.

verteu 2y ago

Some concrete numbers for the curious: I'd estimate that a single individual with zero skills in NYC could get: 1) A receptionist job for $46k/yr (includes health insurance) [1] 2) A shared $2k/mo 2BR Jersey City apartment [2] They'd have a take-home pay of $2960 - $1000/mo (rent) - $1000/mo in other expenses (fairly high estimate IMO). Annual savings (with a traditional IRA) would be about $13k/yr. It's not much, but the savings rate is almost 30% of gross income, and retirement calculators say you'll retire at 65 a multimillionaire. Surprisingly, a daily Starbucks or avocado toast (or forgetting the tax-deductible IRA contribution) really does eat into the savings numbers. And forget about having kids until you get a career upgrade. The major risk is an increase in rent without an increase in wages. Let's investigate: From 2012-2024, rent in Queens (not sure about JC) rose 45% ('only' 3.14% APY) [3]. Over the same period, national wages grew 47% (3.3% APY) [4]. That's good, since our individual earns 3x more wages than they pay rent. Wage growth was even higher among nonmanagers, so I don't think the growth was captured by the 1%. [5] Overall, it looks OK to me, though the margins are thin, and you need to share an apartment. Hard to make it work for a family. I'd be curious to see some others run the numbers. [1] https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=receptionist+-hour+-experience&l=new+york%2C+ny&from=searchOnDesktopSerp&vjk=25716d924b5b518e https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=receptionist+-hour+-experience... [2] https://streeteasy.com/building/3657-kennedy-boulevard-jersey_city/-2r?from_map=1 https://streeteasy.com/building/3657-kennedy-boulevard-jerse... [3] StreetEasy Rent Index: https://streeteasy.com/blog/data-dashboard https://streeteasy.com/blog/data-dashboard , chose Queens as it was most comparable in price to JC [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CEU0500000003 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CEU0500000003 [5] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI