Spending Collapses In All Generation Groups

[FarCenter]

It's no secret that boomers fearing an underfunded retirement have sharply cut spending. However, it's not just boomers cutting back. Consumer attitudes toward debt have changed across all age groups.

A recent Gallup Poll shows just how dramatic a spending shift has taken place. Please consider Boomers’ Spending, Like Other Generations’, Down Sharply.

Baby boomers' self-reported average daily spending of $64 in 2009 is down sharply from an average of $98 in 2008. But baby boomers -- the largest generational group of Americans -- are not alone in pulling back on their consumption, as all generations show significant declines from last year. Generation X has reported the greatest spending on average in both years, and is averaging $71 per day so far in 2009, down from $110 in 2008.

The chart shows Boomers and Generation X are the two demographic largest groups. Spending is down by 34.7% among boomers and 35.4% in Generation X. Spending is down by 33.7% in generation Y, the third largest demographic group. That is a remarkably consistent decline in spending.

Spending by the "Greatest Generation" is down a whopping 44% but that group only constitutes 5% of the population.

<snip> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/spending-collapses-in-all-generation.html

[babylonsister]

1. Really? Bookmarked. We're ALL doomed! nt

[mullard12ax7]

6. What a totally heartless thing to say about millions of Americans

Is that your version of "The sky is falling"? It's pitiful.

[babylonsister]

7. Pleeeeze. Educate yourself. What has collapsed in your opinion? nt

[glowing]

2. Education of women is the largest deterrent of Taliban operatives being able to recruit

young men to their organization. Why do you think they attack school girls with acid and enforce crazy rules about marriage and clothing? I didn't know this until recently, but when a young girl is educated, they often go home and teach their mother to read and write. With the ability to read and write, the mother's are more educated about the possibilities for their children outside of sending them to the Taliban for training. It is apparently a great dishonor for a boy to go become a trained fighting Taliban member unless they recieve the blessing from their mother. An educated mother is more likely NOT to give their son the blessing. For him to go to war without the blessing, would be a big time sin thingy.

Troops on the ground are building schools and supplying them with materials for learning. When the drones attack non-descriminate targets, the innocent are more likely to become fanatical and hate America. Building infrastructure, providing education, and changing the methods of financial gains with producing crops other than Poppy (which give the Taliban their money), are the ways in which to end the oppression in a region that has been abused for much too long.

I'm not sure how we are supposed to "fix" this without serious financial investments over many, many, many years. I personally believe the mission would be 10 times more successful if we used "Peace Corp" types of worker en masse (treat them like the military with pay and education, etc.) and have the Armed forces protect them. We have a lot of people out of work in America. Take all those people who are used to building homes and infrastructure, send them into the region, and have them protected by armed forces to build and teach. This version is cheaper than drones and bombs in the long run. An educated populace with opportunity and hope for the future is going to throw the extremists out... that's what the villages who have been given schools and opportunities tend to to do. Great way to put people to work in this country.. however, it would be a sacrifice that many Americans, other than our Armed services, haven't been asked to do in a while.

[Why Syzygy]

3. huh?

You got lost somewhere between "Reply" and "Post message".

[glowing]

9. I got an error message.. It posted in a wayyyy wrong location.

This was in response to george Wills and wanting to get the ground troops out of Afghanistan and just use aerial attacks.. like Bush I suppose.

[pansypoo53219]

4. depression era people did not spend much after. except spoiling their baby boomers.

i do estate sales. not many clothes. not a lot of excess. and my grandma had enough string, rubber bands, toilet brushes saved.......

[Why Syzygy]

5. This baby boomer

didn't get spoiled. My dad sent me to work as soon as I was legal age to work. He was an excellent money manager. No frills at our house. Broad brushes suck.

[JDPriestly]

11. Me too. That stuff about spoiled baby boomers is not true in my experience.

[Why Syzygy]

12. We had tape decks

for cripes sake! :rofl: You cannot get spoiled playing tapes and records. Those days were pre microwave or VCR EVEN. Sheesh . Some people's perspective of history. ;)

[JDPriestly]

20. You are a way, way late baby-boomer. The baby-boomers

I remember had to go half days to school because there were too many of them to fit into the schools at that time. There also weren't enough houses for them all either. So, many of their parents either lived with mom and dad -- three generations including babies in one house -- or they moved into tiny, new houses in housing developments. Some of them even moved into houses that hadn't been finished because they had no where to live. The baby boomers in later years may have known what tape decks were, but televisions were too expensive for many families until into the 1950s.

[Why Syzygy]

23. I was 50's.

But I did watch Howdy Doody and Sheri and Lambchops before I was school age, iirc. Tapes came out when I was attending high school. I had a record player. Cool guys had tape decks in their cars. The BIG tapes. (Those muscle cars still set my heart aflutter :blush: )

Geography must have something to do with the housing. Lots of land in Texas. Prior to the age of four, when we moved to the big city, we lived in the country. Have been told that during the dust storms, the linoleum stood up off the floor. My grandparents had an out house.

[aquart]

15. I started working summers at age 12.

Typing address labels for endless mailing lists in the days before computers. Or electric typewriters, come to think of it.

[Why Syzygy]

16. I worked at my dad's office

one summer. We had a memograph machine. Turn by hand. No Xerox! The younger gens don't know how primative we had it. Technology has increased faster in the past 25 years than it did in 6,000 years prior.

[aquart]

21. Perhaps we should teach the young about carbon paper.

And the joys of correcting an error in every one of six copies.

[Why Syzygy]

22. er, but

they don't believe in CORRECTIONS! That would mean they know how to spell. Or even give a rat's hindy.

[Why Syzygy]

25. That was mean

and my conscience has let me know. Sorry. :blush:

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Neither did this baby boomer and I get so sick of hearing this crap!

:puke:

[imdjh]

8. Soap Opera Digest, anything in "individual sizes", etc....pissing away money

It's about time this country got a wake up call. I've been watching TV ads for a long time and wonder how it is that a culture which gave the world most of the essential technologies it enjoys, can now we occupied with selling crappy food in ever smaller packages..... for CONVENIENCE.

What the hell is all this convenience? Who they hell doesn't have time to do the simplest things? You are neither that busy nor that important.

And while I am on the subject: people who own the most "work saving devices" tend to be the people who do the least work. The number of clever mops and gadgets you own is inversely proportional to the likelihood that you are going to clean the floor or the toilet anytime soon.

Hints to live by:

If it's next to the cash register, you probably don't need it.

Stop being a leadfoot and you will be amazed at what your gas mileage is, even on an old car.

Start figuring your gas mileage.

Turn your AC to a warmer setting and get a floor fan. If you are sleeping with the AC on and a blanket on your bed, you're an idiot.

[SoCalDem]

14. I laughed my ass off at Costco a while back

Individually wrapped apple slices.. Hint:

Buy a small apple.. Use TEETH ..throw away core :)

[imdjh]

17. That's a good one.

[CoffeeCat]

24. Tell me about it...

...and can you imagine the chemicals they have to add to that apple--to keep it browning for weeks at a time??

I used to think I was lazy because I purchased frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Now, I don't feel bad--because they sell cooked, boneless, skinless chicken breasts. And they also sell cooked, boneless,
skinless chicken breasts that have been cut into bite-sized pieces!

I can buy the frozen for $4.99 for 3 lbs. These pkgs of pre-cooked, pre-cut chicken are $3 for 10 ounces. People who
buy groceries this way are incredibly stupid, wasteful and lazy!!

And don't get me started about Lunchables...

[OneBlueSky]

10. no money = no spending . . . pretty simple, no? . . . n/t

.

[Hannah Bell]

13. yes, not like everyone's sitting on mounds of cash. close to 10% unemployment

& half the population makes $15/hr or less anyway.

[Craftsman]

19. Green shoots meet weedwacker