Do you like the sound of McCainvilles? Or what about Obamavilles? Do those sound like terms of something we all have heard of back in the 1930s during the Great Depression? With several history books describing what it was like during the Great Depression, many homeless and unemployed people lived in what numerous people called Hoovervilles because President Herbert Hoover did nothing at that time to make the conditions any better. In 2005, Erika D. Smith wrote an article on how Americans are not saving enough money. Today in 2008, I believe this is still true, in fact even worse probably as more people are now in debt, let alone just being able to “get by”. I agree with her in the fact that Americans need to spend less money, moreover we need to find ways to save more money at times like these. While many are comparing the most recent stock market crash’s severity to that of the one in the late 1920s that led to the Great Depression, the government needs to step in far earlier than it did back then to make sure Americans can become financially stable. This way we can avoid having McCainvilles or Obamavilles.
In “American Savings Rate Zeroes Out” Erika D. Smith states how the national savings rate is at zero. She states Americans are saving none of their after-tax income. However, she says that economists state that the savings rate is artificially low due to rate calculations ignoring ways how many Americans save cash. In addition, while the savings rate is falling, she reports that average net worth is rising which can be traced to the booming real estate market. Even with that, Americans are still not saving enough. Some ways Americans need to save money are putting money away in 401k plans and saving 10 percent of their salary a year because the government and ...