Our Negative Savings Rate
The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://www.bea.gov/) made this chart. Note how the Personal Savings Rate (that's the percent of disposable income saved instead of spent) turned negative in 2005.
That's right! Americans now spend several percentage points more than they earn!
A lot of government economists tried to cover this up by claiming that "household wealth" was rising. Those figures were based on the belief that homes actually had the crazy values people were paying for them.
That turned out not to be true. Just because some Donald Trump wannabe in Sacramento or Stockton gets a $600,000 mortgage for a house, doesn't mean that house is worth $600,000, especially when he can't really afford the payments. These loans were made with teaser rates for the first year where you were paying only the interest, or sometimes less than that.
With nonsense values attached to houses, we were able to create the illusion that household wealth was rising.
Now that the bubble has burst, who do you think Nancy Pelosi, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest want to pay for all this? Not the people who ruined our economy by spending money they didn't have.
No, the tiny fraction of Americans who sacrificed and saved money are being forced to pay for the mistakes of greedy real estate specuvestors.
Us savers are being financially raped! Up our financial asses!
These lower interest rates--an attempt at keeping "Harry Howmuchamonth" with an affordable mortgage--are a tax on savings accounts! And dumping money on people, our so-called stimulus package--is an inflationary tactic that will further erode people's savings.
It's grossly unfair that the few responsible citizens of the United States of America are being treated so badly. Nobody cares about these True Victims of the sub-prime mortgage mess.