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Well, why are we in this current situation? Because at the margin at very low income levels it makes more sense to borrow than save. However, in a deflationary system it makes more sense to save than borrow. QED

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You make it look like poor people are not saving because of ill will. In my experience, poor people don't save because they don't have any discretionary income, as in, you need to eat, have a shelter and clothes, and your income barely meets those needs.

Even when there is surplus income in an inflationary system it makes zero sense to save it outside of an inflation protected vehicle. It makes more sense to simply spend it and borrow when you are short. This isn't "ill will." It is a natural consequence of inflation.

It only makes sense to save when there is enough income that the risk of losing savings from a) bad investment or b) inflation is lower than the expected payoff.

You're right, it doesn't make sense to keep $BIG_BUCKS lying around on an account somewhere, losing value to inflation. It's a better idea to seek a return on that kind of money.

But saving makes sense even just to prepare for unexpected expenses. We're not talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars here, in most cases, it's not even tens. Barely scraping by might be a bit of an alien concept to someone pulling in $250K/year from programming.

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