Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash, this article comes from the WeChat public account: , author: Oil Stick, edit: Yakult
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The epidemic in the United States has not been suppressed so far. The number of new people per day seems to have dropped slightly, but one accidentally will still exceed 20,000. If there is any country in the world that is really trapped by the new coronavirus, it is the United States.
This will inevitably lead to changes in the economic operating model. We have already seen the changes at the macro level. The policy of unlimited QE and unemployment / SME assistance is very fast; at the micro level, American consumption is significantly reduced and the bad debt rate of debts owed With the improvement, the personal saving rate of residents has gradually increased.
This is an anomaly. After all, in our generation ’s understanding, Americans are reluctant to deposit, early consumption is the essence of American lifestyle, and silly depositing seems to be a mysterious oriental religious ceremony.
This is also due to the story of the comparison between the old Chinese and American ladies that our generation saw in the middle school textbook of “Politics and Economics”. The old Chinese lady in the story saved a lifetime of money and finally bought her new house. When the old American lady was a big girl, she lived in a big house and paid off the loan before she died.
Later, there was a derivative rebellious version of this fable, saying that every American lady who enjoys happiness has a Chinese lady who earnestly deposits and maintains the balance of payments in the banking system. The Chinese people who seem to love deposits have become a strong backing of consumerism around the world, allowing many people who can only save 500 a month to experience the joy of being a savior.
Now we all know that these two stories are made up. But it can’t be said that the story is completely absent.
In the decades after the 1980s, if you only looked at the personal savings rate in the United States, you will indeed find that this country does not seem to have the awareness of deposits.
To give an example that is not far away, the 2017 annual report of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average household income (before tax) of the US household was 73,573 US dollars, the average household consumption was 60,060 US dollars, and the two were reduced to 13,513 US dollars. This is still a surplus before tax, pay the tax, and do some charity (North American charity industry is sinking) , not less than a year The savings rate is naturally not high.
But think harder and you will find outass = “text-remarks”>, Author: Oil Stick, edit: Yakult