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[Starver]

His next Human Skinsuit is taking longer to manufacture than expected?

[Dostoevsky]

This is all true, but the problem is that it's insane to think this means "only the rich have savings". This is basically a "people died at 40 in the middle ages"-type error. What is going on here is that people through all the deciles have savings, but the people with huge amounts of debt increasingly balance them out on average. This doesn't mean that only the rich have savings, it just means that only the richest deciles have relatively fewer debtors.

Does this account for the CV values contained in that data set? (Honest question.)

Edit: That being the lowest two and the top decile are somewhat off the rails, but the other deciles don't seem to have as much variance.

(Second edit: also gotta say I don't appreciate the accusation of insanity. This is just a field I'm ignorant about.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As I said, for a worker having debt greater than your savings means you don't have savings. You have increased purchasing power by not applying your savings to your debt right away, but you do not have real savings because the interest of your debts accumulates faster. This all changes if you have leveragable assets and especially if you have significant leveragable assets (i.e., are a capitalist or nearly so), but most people either don't have any or don't have any that are worth losing for any price.

In a similar vein, we should probably also apply an "average disaster penalty" to any worker who does have savings greater than their debt, since that's by far the most likely thing to count against those savings long-term.

[MrRoboto75]

Nobody has savings because the vast majority live paycheck to paycheck.

[Maximum Spin]

Does this account for the CV values contained in that data set? (Honest question.)

Edit: That being the lowest two and the top decile are somewhat off the rails, but the other deciles don't seem to have as much variance.

Yes, savers are outweighed substantially by debtors in that middle section, so the variance is going to be low even though the actual range of values is quite broad.

(Second edit: also gotta say I don't appreciate the accusation of insanity. This is just a field I'm ignorant about.)

You didn't say the thing I said was insane anyway? That was smush.

[Dostoevsky]

Yes, savers are outweighed substantially by debtors in that middle section, so the variance is going to be low even though the actual range of values is quite broad.

Hold on, isn't this just savings and expenditures and not total asset value, thereby not accounting for standing debt? And now that I look at the values further, it doesn't even seem to include debt servicing (aside from mortgages) as expenses?

Edit: Hell, let's try the census instead for something more straightforward. Wealth, asset ownership, and debt of U.S. Households, 2017.

Table of wealth/assets, table 4, lines 67-72 are a start, I suppose? Shows those with various values of net worth, including negative values. 29% of the bottom quintile with negative assets, 20.8% of second, 16.7% of third, 10.1% of fourth, and 4.3% of the top.

As interesting is the $1 to $4,999 category, with 21.5% on the bottom, 11.1% for the second, 5.2% for the third, 2.1% for the fourth, and 0.8% for the top. (Values higher than that vary a lot less, apart from the highest values.)

[Maximum Spin]

Nobody has savings because the vast majority live paycheck to paycheck.

The reciprocal of "78%" is not "nobody".

What you have to understand is that there's still a whole functioning middle class out here in the flyovers. There aren't MANY of us, of course, but then, a functioning middle class cannot absorb many people to begin with. We do still totally exist.

ETA:

Yes, savers are outweighed substantially by debtors in that middle section, so the variance is going to be low even though the actual range of values is quite broad.

Hold on, isn't this just savings and expenditures and not total asset value, thereby not accounting for standing debt? And now that I look at the values further, it doesn't even seem to include debt servicing (aside from mortgages) as expenses?

It does seem to be, yes. Based on further research into the methods, in afct, the whole data set is suspect and I rescind my earlier "this is all true", which was honestly meant to refer to the general statement of debtors outweighing savers since I had not actually looked at the data you provided that closely yet.

[McTraveller]

People that live paycheck to paycheck can't build savings, and people who don't have savings live paycheck to paycheck.  It's a circular, irrelevant observation.

Most people have no savings because they aren't willing to sacrifice the short-term immediate use of the money.  Yes there are stories of people who get wiped out by a medical event or other disaster, but those are not the majority (despite what you see on TV).

The downfall of the middle class, I would say, was actually the rise of easily-obtained consumer debt (credit cards) around the 1980s.  This then either enabled directly or vastly accelerated the wealth divide - people were effectively trading a sizable chunk of their future income for buying something "now".  So of course people had more "stuff", but they paid dearly for it.  So many people are now not working for themselves or their future selves - they are working for their past self.  This may work for a few individuals, if you die before you have to cash out. 

But when a whole society tries to do it - well, we see where that gets us.

[feelotraveller]

Simple case for your example: with more money going toward Alienware computers, the prices of Alienware PCs and computer hardware in general increases according to the law of supply and demand. Ultimately this distributes out to an across-the-board cost-of-living increase.

Because supply is fixed and there is no economy of scale?  Pardon my sarcasm.

In the short term yes, and in the long term... well, effectively, yes. Economies of scale are essentially mythical in the modern day.

But any talk about the economy is not about the 'short term'.  In the longer term Alienware will have increased supply resulting in an expanded economy, they benefit, consumers benefit, more jobs, more blah, blah blah.  Which was more or less what Explorer said.  Basically your criticism is moot.  There are crticisms of the consequences of increased consumerism but they have to do with factors that the economic system itself externalises such as environmental damage.  But that is more or less an orthogonal vector here.

Edit: so in fact 'ultimately' the price of living definitely does not increase, and it may well fall.  But there is benefit to many who now have Alienware who would not have otherwise.  Not that some of us regard using Alienware as really beneficial. 

[Maximum Spin]

In the longer term Alienware will have increased supply resulting in an expanded economy, they benefit, consumers benefit, more jobs, more blah, blah blah.

Ultimately, untrue.

[MrRoboto75]

Most people have no savings because they aren't willing to sacrifice the short-term immediate use of the money.  Yes there are stories of people who get wiped out by a medical event or other disaster, but those are not the majority (despite what you see on TV).

Ah right people don't bootstrap hard enough.  Lazy fucking assholes with their avo toast.

Not like productivity gains go right into shareholder pockets instead of the people actually making valuable shit.  People have no savings because being alive cost more and you absolutely refuse to give them income.

[RedKing]

Strap in, buttercups. Debate in 4 minutes. Hide your spouse and kids, grab the strongest form of alcohol on hand.

[Egan_BW]

Looking forwards to clips of Trump ranting silently.

[Bumber]

Trump's probably going to bring up Hunter's laptop.

Edit: Looks like Biden brought it up first, indirectly, with a comment about Rudy Giuliani.

[Rolan7]

fuckin wat
Every debate after the first one has caught my by surprise.  JFC.
Seriously though, wasn't it a thing that he wasn't going to do any more debates?  RIP me I guess.