I’M 100% CONFIDENT MOST AMERICANS ARE MORONS

These polls crack me up. They prove how delusional and stupid the average American truly is. Americans are the most confident people on earth. Too bad they are also the most egotistical, clueless, and math challenged people on earth. The poll below shows that 58% of Americans are either very or somewhat confident about their retirement. A full 75% of them think they’ll have enough to take care of basic expenses and 56% think they’ll have enough for medical expenses. The average American is an imbecile if they think they are in good shape.

Here are the facts. The median retirement balance of all households is $3,000. The median retirement balance of 45 to 64 year old households is $11,000. But still, the delusional morons in this country are confident about their retirements.

Here is some basic math for these people. If we even use $100,000 as the starting retirement account of a newly retired 65 year old, the rule of thumb is that you can’t spend more than 4% of the balance per year in retirement. That’s $4,000. The average Social Security payment is $13,000 per year. Are these blithering idiots really CONFIDENT they will be able to pay basic and medical expenses on $17,000 per year? REALLY???

I’m 100% confident the majority of Americans are truly fucked and will beg for the government to save them. I’m also 100% confident this entire edifice of debt is going to collapse under the weight of delusion, stupidity and false confidence. Carlin was absolutely right.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

 

 

A survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute has found that the percentage of Americans confident of a financially comfortable retirement is increasing. 22 percent of respondents said they were very confident about the financial aspects of life after work while 36 percent were somewhat confident.

Looking closer at certain elements of retirement, 37 percent of Americans feel very confident that they will have enough money to take care of their basic expenses. However, when it comes to taking care of medical expenses and paying for long-term care, this number fell. Just 18 percent of people are very confident of being able to handle their medical expenses while even fewer, 14 percent, feel confident about paying long-term care bills, should they need to.

Infographic: How Confident Are Americans About Retirement?  | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista


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Robmu1
Robmu1

I disagree Admin. I’d say that most Americans are numbskulls.

Robmu1
Robmu1

Dim-Wits for Hillary.

Persnickety
Persnickety

Full-retards for Hilarity!

Dutchman
Dutchman

What’s even worse utilities / property taxes / insurance keep rising with inflation.

It costs me about $12,000 a year to live in my bought and paid for home.

$6,000 taxes / $3,000 insurance / $1,500 gas / $1,500 elec.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

They need to kill their husband for the life insurance. Make sure he has life insurance first, though.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Most people don’t make enough to save for retirement, at least if the work in the non professional private sector.

If those who could cut back enough to make meaningful retirement savings actually did so, it would crash the economy completely since the things they are now spending it on would fall flat and no one would be employed in making and selling them. This would increase the numbers of those who don’t have enough to make retirement savings.

No one seems to have a solution to this.

starfcker
starfcker

Don’t get too cocky, jim. When the ponzi edifice that pays all the dot gov pension crumbles, it’s gonna take a lot of private financial assets with it. Those reassuring numbers on retirement accounts are no more real than any other. Look how the folks who followed the rules (savers) are getting fucked right now. The next ‘smart’ group (paper investors) is next.

starfcker
starfcker

When money is free (counterfeit) , all that money you saved ain’t gonna mean squat. Not if you are counting on inflation. There has to be some productive use for that money. Don’t get me wrong, I see the point you’re making, and yeah, the clueless are fucked, and deservedly so.

starfcker
starfcker

But a lot of people who did plan and invest and play by the rules are just as screwed, they just don’t know it yet. Muni-bonds for dinner, again?

starfcker
starfcker

Dumbass here is agreeing with you. But the financial system is one big jenga tower. All I’m saying is if your assets and income are paper, they are riskier than you might think. That tower comes crashing down, it’s not going to be pretty for a lot of good hardworking thrifty people who did do the right thing.

starfcker
starfcker

It’s worse than that, actually. Not only haven’t they saved anything, they speed towards retirement carrying a massive debt load. So whatever income they can scratch up or grift just keeps the wolves at bay. I get people asking me all the time, where can I put my money where it is safe and I can make 5%. Tough question, and I don’t have a great answer.

Peaceout
Peaceout

I agree with Admin, how can you be 45-64 years old and only have saved $12k? It is mind numbing to me to fathom how this is possible until I think back and look at how some of the people I know live. They always had nicer cars than me, toys I do not possess, eat out all the time, season tickets to sporting events, nicer vacations.

It used to bother me that I made more money than they did but they were living a far nicer lifestyle. Then things started going bad for them, all of those second mortgages taking home appreciation money out of their houses to support their lavish ways came back to haunt them. Home prices crashed and they were upside down their mortgage, jobs were lost, divorces happened, they had to sell their nice cars and toys to cover their debts Now they are trying o figure out how or if they will ever be able to retire with $12k or less in the bank. Dumbasses every one of them.

Allen
Allen

So, am I crazy or smart for not participating in our companies 401k? They match fifty cents on the dollar, up to $1,000 yr max. Do you play the game and hope you will actually receive pay outs from it in 25 years or avoid 401k’s altogether and invest elsewhere?

Persnickety
Persnickety

@Allen: probably crazy. Matching contributions is not to be missed. Ideally you wouldn’t stay at one company too long and would rollover your 401k to an IRA each time you move companies, so you can have greater control over the funds. (The IRA also has minor drawbacks, but on balance I prefer the greater control.)

It’s very hard to find any good investments right now, but I’d rather have some money saved and earning 1% than no money saved at all.

Stucky

Me? I’m one thousand percent Amerikans are fuckin morans.

Fux Newz ….. #1 Cable Show!!!! (not just news shows … ALL cable).

comment image

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/04/304589-fox-news-hits-new-1-the-cable-network-dominates-as-2016-presidential-candidates-off-to-the-races/

If that doesn’t make you want to throw up in your mouth then what will?

Allen
Allen

Thanks Admin, I like the low risk money market or bond idea. Maybe I will go ahead and start making some contributions and get my share of the company matching.

And yes, we are allowed to take loans on balances and pay ourselves back.

Mark
Mark

How convienant . The government taxes for social security and spends the money getting re-elected. Then when it’s time to cough up 20 years from today they will be out of office. And the Democrats will say the greedy rich aren’t paying their fair share of taxes and that’s why social security and Medicare are broke.

I just hope a lot of Greeks and other assorted Europeans have their pensions wiped out first. Not the the average dolt in America can draw any connection. And for that matter be able to locate the continent of Europe on a map.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The really big surprise will be when retirement accounts are forced into government bonds and other government financial instruments and distributed not according to how much was put into them but according to how much is needed by government and how much is left over.

I predicted this over 20 years ago, and it is actually starting to be considered by various authorities.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need – or something of that nature.

Anonymous
Anonymous

America gets the government is deserves. Hillary is the next president.

Llpoh
Llpoh

And all those folks that have saved zip have decided it is unfair that anyone else has managed it, and intend to take it from them. See Hillary’s comments for proof positive.

Everyone must be poor. It is only fair.

DC Sunsets

RE: 401k’s, it is a GOOD risk to take the full match. The $ you put in there will be there as long as the gov’t doesn’t seize it or the banking system doesn’t completely implode, which while possible, are for the time being somewhat unlikely.

If you change jobs and you roll over your 401k into an IRA, you can always take the money OUT of it, paying the full income tax and 10% early withdrawal penalty……which will be less than the company match. This is tantamount to FREE MONEY.

While you’re working there the money in the 401k is somewhat locked in, so that’s the calculated risk part of this. I do not put a thin dime into my 401k more than what is matched. I pay Guido the Extortionist (The tax man) because he’s got a gun to my head….but what I have left is MINE to put in the bank, buy a cigar, or put in a pile and burn it. Whether I make a good decision with it or a bad one, it’s at least MINE to make.

DC Sunsets

IMHO there are four reasons people may have little money saved for their non-productive years:
1. They’re “house poor,” and somehow think their McMansion and the leveraged loan (mortgage) on it is somehow their “retirement plan.”
2. They’re “car poor” and spend $500, $600, or more per month driving around in style instead of putting away any excess cash.
3. They barely make enough to cover modest bills. It often amazes me how LITTLE so many people actually earn at their jobs. Custodians at my wife’s school start at about $20k/yr for full time work. Yikes!
4. They have NO CLUE how to plan. This may be due to overt stupidity but often I think it’s just Pop Culture at work, because “present orientation” is a central theme of our current times.

Democracy (and the Total State) turns adults into perpetual children, and children live in the perpetual now.

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr

Sorry, no next president per “The Obama Doll Prophecy” at Youtube. As for saving paper promises for the future, you better have a lot of them and die young. (ref three Youtubes “Tsunami Prophecy”; “The Lord’s Message to Obama Prophet Efrain Rodriguez”; “A Prophecy from a 90 Year Old Lady”). In 1937 during a vision of The Big One, Joe Brandt saw a newspaper photo of the POTUS and he had Big Ears. Protect your earnings the old fashioned way: gold or diamonds and a passport.

starfcker
starfcker

Jim, you mention the igadgets. There is an even worse angle, the service. After 08, I spent all my time rapidly downsizing so our burn rate matched up with our newly miniature cash flow. Took a couple of years, and a lot of torturous and extended negotiations

starfcker
starfcker

By the time I finished, many of my other friends and colleagues were just waking up to the fact they had to do the same thing, and quickly. I practically became a downsizing consultant for awhile, and the first thing I noticed in every case was the amount of money spent on servicing iphones. It was easily 3 or 4 times as much a s the samsungs I run through metro.

starfcker
starfcker

Running 30 cell phones with metro is under 800 bucks a month, the same number of iphones was 3-4 thousand dollars every month. Yet that was the single change that was resisted the most, in every case. Baffling.

TE
TE

Not only have most not saved, most squandered their non-work time too.

I wonder if 100 years ago, and throughout our serf existence, the average “work” week was less than 30 hours to survive and raise a family outside the gutter?

For the past 30 years I have found myself unable to explain how people that are too “broke,” can be telling me this over a beer at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

As a kid, my bosses had to kick me out to keep me from working more hours than legally allowed, or pay me more covertly. As a young mom, I worked full time and was taking between 7-12 credit hours in college each semester, and every other summer. That divorce led to a second job.

Once I was in offices, or on the road for sales, I never saw a 40 hour week, that was a vacation, still picked up classes and was actively involved with my son in scouts, soccer and baseball.

And still would go out and find additional paid work (I’ve painted barns and scrubbed walls to make cash, I’m not proud as long as I’m clothed) when I was feeling “broke.”

My sister has been broke her entire life, shockingly, she has never wanted to work more than 40 hours and usually not even that. One of the reasons she was dissatisfied in her marriage was that her husband was motivated by money (not saving though) and wanted to work as many hours as he could. She would scream about being lonely and eventually decided that an affair would make things more even.

I see this attitude towards survival time and again. People complaining they “can’t” save, or afford something, yet they fill the majority of their time with nothing and cannot figure out why their life is such a loss.

Even my hub, whom owns his own business, refused to put in the time/effort needed to save it, if I wouldn’t have done it, it would be long gone. Though he is away from home for “work” about 54 hours a week, he goes out to lunch everyday and surfs porn for hours. He thinks I can’t see, or add, apparently.

We really are in the post-ability-to-survive stage. I now see it clearly.

This country cannot be fixed because the real fix – personal responsibility, accountability and hard work – will never be accepted by the vast majority as necessary, let alone implemented.

Which is why the government now deems us a “herd” that is to be shot, branded and poisoned/slaughtered and processed as they see fit.

Best part? Even the “smart” buy into the mentality and shout down any that try and shake them awake. We have become a lazy, waiting to be culled, net detriment to the earth, herd of humans that truly want to believe the government CAN’T let us die.

What makes me sad/crazy is that I know nothing I ever show or say will sway my wee one’s father that we have gone full retard and need to get out while the getting is good.

Nope, our best days are ahead and the little things like work, health freedom and math don’t matter in our ecstasy, joy, destruction, suffering and ultimately death.

So many ways to FUBAR, so little remaining time to enjoy what we have now. Party like it’s 1999, cause this time isn’t a bullshit, made-up, corporate/government conspiracy that created the illusion of permanent prosperity on a temporary employment glitch. This time the Apocalypse will likely be for real.

ps- Hub is way above the “norm” in retirement/savings, and the “smartest” investor/saver in the room, but we will be no better off than my sister. My hub hates it when I point that out, yet does nothing to put plans in place to stop it from happening.

So, many, ways, to, FUBAR. Good luck to us all.

a cruel accountant
a cruel accountant

Why don’t people save for retirement.? Because they do not fucking have too!

They get Social Security and Medicare. If that is not enough they get Snap, section 8 plus dozens of other programs to coddle them in retirement.

Why fucking work in the first place? The government will take care of you!

SSS

“I get people asking me all the time, where can I put my money where it is safe and I can make 5%. Tough question, and I don’t have a great answer.”
—-starfcker

Take a look at preferred common stock ($25 par value per share) issued by power companies. Got a boat load in my IRA, all of which is paying 5-7% interest annually.

I hit pay dirt with Georgia Power and Light for several years when its preferred was paying nearly 8% AND the stock was trading at over $29 a share, which would have translated to a nifty capital gain had I sold. Then the fuckers at the company snuck up on me and other stockholders and recalled all its preferred stock and paid us all the $25 per share. Still walked away with over 20 grand in interest while I held it. Didn’t pay a nickel in taxes either, since it was in my IRA. Heh.

As for safety, ask yourself one question. Who in the fuck is going to let a major power company go broke and turn off the lights? Power companies are state-controlled utilities that have state-controlled rates, just enough to play fair with rate payers and just enough to let the companies cover costs and make some modest profit. Plus most of the thousand of jobs at power companies pay very well. States love those income taxes coming into the state treasury (those states that tax income, that is).

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

El Paso Electric pulled a boner and stiffed my father in law, he ended up with a huge loss. Then there were those GE utility workers who had their 401K’s frozen by the crooked E, they watched their life savings go down the tubes, unable to sell or get out.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

SSS

Power companies used to be public utilities. Georgians found that deregulation really hurt the pocketbook. The Germans owned and controlled LG&E in Louisville at one point , aka The Power Nazis. Don’t know who controls things now.

So far as your love for the Wall Street casino………good luck with that.

SSS

Admin

One teensy comment coming your way. And you’ve said this many, many times in the past.

You forgot to mention the modest income and elderly retired savers who managed to be frugal and put away, let’s say, $100,000-200,000 for retirement. They were responsible spenders, played the game and SAVED as best they could. Right?

Along comes the Fed’s ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and WIPES OUT the modest $5,000-$10,000 dollars in interest those folks got annually on making “safe” investments, such as a bank certificate of deposit, to pad their retirement income. Poof. And it’s gone.

One more example of sound personal responsibility getting f***ed by our federal government.

SSS

WTF is it about my comments that generate responses to which I cannot reply? As in …

“El Paso Electric pulled a boner and stiffed my father in law, he ended up with a huge loss.”
—-El Coyote

??????????? Sounds like a personal problem, but there are zero details. When I look at investing in a power company, I do some research. El Paso Power hasn’t come to my attention.

“Power companies used to be public utilities. ….. So far as your love for the Wall Street casino………good luck with that.
—-Bea Lever

Well, power companies are now quasi-public or quasi-private, depending on your point of view. Deal with it. As for the Wall Street casino, what exactly do you expect me to do with the money my wife and I saved mightily for over 20 years for retirement after the kids were grown? Stuff it in a fucking mattress? I try to invest VERY conservatively and wisely, and I think I gave a responsible answer to starfcker’s question. All of a sudden, my answer is a “casino” to you.

In addition to stocks, I have gold, silver, and cash. I have zero debt, and I drive a 10 year-old Toyota RAV-4 with a custom “I LIKE IKE” rear bumper sticker (which attracts a lot of positive attention) and a 270 hp V-6 which can make the car really scoot, as in 0-60 in way less than 6 seconds. I park my car next to the really high-end SUVs, Corvettes, Mercedes, and Tesla’s at the golf club to which I belong. And I am not one bit embarrassed to do so.

My wife and I saved our way into that environment, and we tried our best to make smart decisions for our retirement, the first of which was to get the fuck out of debt by paying off our home mortgage before we retired. It has worked. So far.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

SSS

My house has been paid for going on sixteen years and that is a must for retired folk. Low or no debt also a must. I still think any schmuck that stays in the casino will take it up the backside….you gotta know when to fold em. I have been out of paper (everything ) for four years. Hard assets only.

BTW ,the way to impress me is to say “I drive a fifteen year old vehicle”. You are smarter than the average bear…..but then I already knew that.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

SSS- I meant to type ten year old vehicle….brain fart.

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