This is absolutely right. Average personal savings rates in India and China: 30% and 50% (and that's of their gross income). Average personal savings in the USofA: -2%. We've lived so far beyond our means that it had to catch up to us.
The real scare for me is the potential for another, larger bubble: the "Credit Bubble". A bubble exists when asset price inflation rises beyond what incomes can sustain. A bubble represents people abandoning reason and prudence for hope and greed. (http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-15-bubbles)
The Credit Bubble will pop when the sum total of all of our society's debt prices (read: interest) exceeds our ability to pay. Experts think this could happen anywhere between 2015 and 2020. When that pops, the housing bubble will look minuscule.
The prudent should prepare now. Buy food storage. Become self reliant. And get out of debt!
> Average personal savings rates in India and China was: 30% and 50%
Yes, but if you take into account the 9% inflation in India, the savings might be a net loss.
As was pointed out to me earlier in another HN discussion, the only reason why the Indian government guarantees a seemingly too good to believe interest rate of 9% for the savings accounts of their senior citizens is because that rate cancels out inflation.
Wouldn't the rational decision for this scenario be to participate in the credit bubble and use the money to buy food storage and become more self-reliant?
The real scare for me is the potential for another, larger bubble: the "Credit Bubble". A bubble exists when asset price inflation rises beyond what incomes can sustain. A bubble represents people abandoning reason and prudence for hope and greed. (http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-15-bubbles)
The Credit Bubble will pop when the sum total of all of our society's debt prices (read: interest) exceeds our ability to pay. Experts think this could happen anywhere between 2015 and 2020. When that pops, the housing bubble will look minuscule.
The prudent should prepare now. Buy food storage. Become self reliant. And get out of debt!