In inflation-adjusted terms, we spent 40 percent less 20 years ago per capita than we do today. How did this happen?
Investing was winning the battle over consumerism until about two decades ago. Then, consumerism started to take over and the national savings rate began a steep downhill slide. Instead of saving about 10 percent per year as a nation, we started spending more and saving less.
Part of the problem is that industry and the ...
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The graphs are interesting, but the tone is "how to," something I'd expect to see in a "women's" magazine one buys at the grocery checkout. The story assumes a rate of growth in wages that has not occurred recently. The lack of savings is not totally attributable to consumerism: for instance , average weekly earnings decreases and increases for prices for housing (until the recent crash which has not translated to rents), healthcare, education and now gasoline and food, are obvious in the data kept by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://146.142.4.22/opub/ted/archive07.htm. I'd like to see someone do a study of what the effects are, if any, of interest rates v. inflation rates on savings.
