I have read so many different personal finance blogs, and left quite a few comments because I find it really interesting to have dialogue with others that share my interest in personal finance. In an attempt to create more dialogue, I thought I’d post questions once in awhile for everyone to answer by leaving comments. I’m hoping to find that the most interesting items to read will be in the comments that everyone leaves. So here it goes. I hope you’ll offer your input:
You’ve all heard it before. “Everyone should save 10% of their income”. Here’s the question:
What would happen if all of a sudden, starting tomorrow, every single wage earner in America saved 10% of their income?
Think big.
What would happen to the economy?
What would happen to different industries over time?
What would happen to people?
Ouch!
You’re right. I want people to spend, spend, spend! I want them to buy dumb things from those little carts in the mall and to pay people to tie their shoes for them. I want them to outsource their entire lives and have vast collections of crappy novelty items sold by some huckster on tv late at night. I want them to have so much crap that that they rent public storage units by the dozen and still trip over all the crap that they have lying on the floor of their homes. I want them to insure all of the crap in their homes and cry when some disaster takes their crap away.
I want people to feel deprived!!! I want people who earn six figures to feel poor because they don’t own as much designer clothing as their friends. I want all middle class children to throw huge fits when they don’t get Range Rovers for their super sweet sixteen. I want anyone who doesn’t go on a cruise every month to hang their heads in shame.
Why do I want this? So we’ll import all the more! So our whole economy will be based on crap made by kids in third world countries, and so we can blow small businesses who can’t supply cheap crap out of the water. So Americans will learn their lesson about trying to make quality goods that the whole world wants in favor of cheap crap that only Americans want. So that our dollar, which is tied to the value of the goods that we make in this country, will be as weak as our merchandise.
Then I want the three Americans that were actually paying attention and saving/investing their money in forex to pull evolutionary rank and take over the world.
I like that idea, don’t you?