The World’s a Mess. So They’ve Stopped Saving for Tomorrow

And I think the somewhat scary thing is that we&#x27;ve become a &quot;bailout nation&quot; at so many levels (both at the high end, e.g. &quot;wall street bailouts&quot;, and at the low end, e.g. extremely generous covid unemployment benefits), that a lot of these folks will be bailed out for their poor choices down the road by the rest of us.<p>So it can make someone who is naturally cautious and prudent feel like a sucker when the shit hits the fan, because while they were delaying gratification and risk taking, the people who did &quot;live for today&quot; then get to cry poverty and get bailed out.<p>Worse, if you <i>are</i> prudent and save, you can end up being demonized as a &quot;hoarder&quot; when the tide goes out by those who weren&#x27;t wearing swim trunks. This happened to my family during Covid. I have a family member in the medical field, who has <i>always</i> kept a decent-sized stock of surgical masks and other medical gear around, and was pretty prescient in early 2020 when the news first started coming out of China, stating &quot;people don&#x27;t realize how bad it&#x27;s going to get.&quot; When Covid first hit, when medical authorities were still claiming &quot;masks don&#x27;t work for the general population&quot;, he always wore a mask in public, and in one case was derided for &quot;stealing&quot; masks from those who need it (FWIW he works in a hospital).

The other reason people aren’t saving is record low interest rates, while the rich can keep money in market accounts and get returns up to and over 5% until extremely recently the bank interest rates in many countries are under the rate of inflation and in many countries they still are.<p>Why put it in the bank if all that is happening is your money slowly becoming worth less rather than turning into more via interest in a savings account.

People in their 20s have been living like there is no tomorrow for a long time, not just recently.<p>It is also not new to think the world is falling apart, or to respond to that observation by saying &quot;but this time it <i>really</i> is&quot;. Self-centeredness, myopia, and bad decision making are the rule, not the exception.<p>And it&#x27;s worth noting that self-centeredness, myopia, and bad decision making do not end when you grow up. The world these people say they&#x27;re cashing out of was created by those very things. Maybe deciding not to care about the future is a part of growing up.

This seems so... stupid. In the moment, you can always tell yourself the world is ending and that there&#x27;s no point. But we have a 15000 year track record (modern civilization) that things are going to keep functioning and you&#x27;ll be around tomorrow to live with today&#x27;s choices. Most things are normal most of the time, and neglecting to prepare for the likely outcome while instead focusing on the .00001% chance of collapse is foolish.<p>It&#x27;s like the preppers who spend their entire life savings on a preparing for an apocalypse that never comes. It&#x27;s just stupid.

Saifedean Ammous on his recent Lex Fridman appearance talked quite a bit about &quot;Time Preference&quot;, and how it shifted once we got off a gold standard. I agree with the basic premise that since we can&#x27;t reliably save for the future, long term thinking gets discouraged. We&#x27;ve reached the point where only the very wealthy can think practically in terms of passing things off to future generations.

&gt; Before the pandemic, she said, she was putting about $2,000 into her savings account each month. Now it’s half that amount. The rest goes toward a costlier apartment ($600 more in monthly rent), evenings out with friends and small indulgences she would have denied herself before.<p>&gt; She’s not alone. A recent study by Fidelity Investments found that 45 percent of people aged 18 to 35 “don’t see a point in saving until things return to normal.” In that same age group, 55 percent said they have put retirement planning on hold.<p>This seems to be the crux of the article. Frankly, given the market is volatile and the sun is shining...<p>Why the hell would someone in their 20&#x27;s or early 30&#x27;s decide to buy stock instead of seeing their friends? Investing in getting experiences they haven&#x27;t gotten to have for the past few years?<p>I get &quot;buy at the dip&quot; mentality. But right now, people are buying into the dip of social encounters.

Ha. I was poor in my 20s. Couldn’t save money even if I had wanted too.

In a world where if enough people have some kind of debt, we hear loud cries to cancel it, and politicians have to pander to them, not saving makes sense.

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I&#x27;m paperwork-disabled, meaning I have a lot of difficulty filling out forms, especially paper, but also online. I think it&#x27;s really sad and unhelpful that one has to fill out so many forms to &quot;make it&quot;.

I can see this. I&#x27;m supposed to retire around 2050. The idea that there will be any kind of major society seems remote to me.<p>Aside from the hundreds of millions of refugees, it will simply be impossible to grow much food at scale. Constant wildfires, floods, torrential downpours, drought, and no insects. Also, the aquifers, e.g. the Ogallala will be mostly gone. Also the what&#x27;s left of the topsoil will be gone. What&#x27;s left of the Amazon will be mostly gone the rest turned to savanna. Also most of the fish will be gone.<p>Maybe if we say &quot;net zero&quot; enough times, tens of billions of tonnes of emissions will get sucked directly out of the atmosphere and stored somewhere. Maybe Elon Musk can save us.