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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (50192)	5/18/2009 5:15:37 AM
From: energyplay	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217944

Not much of a surprise here. A large fraction of the 25% Wal-Mart customers with no bank accounts live welfare check to welfare check, so they have a regular income. Another few per cent are illegal aliens / falsely documented. Wal-Mart has the lowest prices, and picks up the very bottom demographic segments. Children and students don't save over long time periods, nor do most retired people. Since about 150 million of the 300 million population work, it is likely that "most people don't save" will always be true. A significant fraction of employed adults do save. About 60% of employees of firms that offer 401 (k) participate. ************ For the 95% of savings coming from top 5%, that's true, but for many of them, that's not savings, they just can't figure out what to spend the money on. Once you have one boat, where do you put a second ? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Probaly the more interesting possibility is the growing frugality / saving / anti-debt behaviour in large section sof the US population. Much higher US savings rates mean - >US consumption much less of a driver for export oriented economies. >Lower retail sales, less need for retail space. >A smaller US financial sector, as less consumer debt --> less revenue. >More investment of US capital worldwide, including emerging markets. For some small equity markets, there is enough money to create an investment bubble in whatever is fashionable. >Less need to sell debt to foreign governments and central banks (this will take a few years to happen)