Well, someone finally published an article which pointed out something which I have known for over one year. Most of those people living in America who have not spent beyond their means and who have not gone into much debt have been unmentioned casualties of the financial crisis. And they continue to be. You see, most of those people have saved money, and except for those who have lost some or most of their money in bad investments, such as in the stock market, they have lost out nonetheless and continue to lose out. That’s because they have invested little or none of their money in anything risky, and instead invested their money in very safe places, such as United States Treasury bills and bank Certificates of Deposit. Of course such people also had some of their money in bank checking accounts. But all of these latter have paid out almost zero interest over the past 12 to 18 months because of the actions of the Federal Reserve. This latter has kept interest rates at near historical lows for more than a year, supposedly in order to alleviate the financial crisis and the recession.
Have you been frugal with your money over the past several years? For example, have you saved $100,000 and always invested it in bank Cerificates of Deposit because the latter are very safe? Well, three years ago or more you would likely have earned anywhere between 3 and 5 thousand dollars a year on your investment. This past year you would have been lucky to earn 500 dollars. Yep, you got shafted.
In the meantime, as is well known, many people who have not been careful and instead went into debt beyond their means by buying a house they could not afford, have been considered poor souls or “casualties” who needed help from the government. Why even a few companies and banks, such as AIG, General Motors and Bank of America who lost much money on risky investments and/or bad business practices have been considered “casualties” who needed help from the government. And boy did they get it. Those poor jerks, such as myself, who spent little money and instead saved a lot of money, why they need no “help” at all, which is certainly true. Furthermore, they apparently do not need what would otherwise be decent interest rates on their money which they have saved only in safe investments such as insured bank deposits. What jerks. They should know better. Yep, that includes me.