How come most Americans are poor?

Anyone making $40,000 per year should not be paying a mortgage company or bank to pay off a home. With that kind of income, you could pay for you home in cash in about 15 years if you save 30% and put it in secure investments.

Me and a guy I know, who is wealthy, don't agree on this. He tells me there is good debt and bad debt. I believe all debt is bad. I believe in buying houses, cars, everything in cash. screw credit cards and loans. That stuff is a scam.

I don't know about you guys, but owing $200,000 on a house I don't own doesn't sound very desirable. I'd rather build my business, make a bunch of money, save, then pay for the home in cold hard cash. Own it free and clear. Now thats what I call freedom. Owe nothing to no one.

 

Some of you may think I'm crazy when I say you can pay for a home in cash if you're making $40,000 grand per year, but check out this math. Lets say you successfully save 30% of your 40 grand each year:

0.30 x $40,000 = $12,000 more per year in your bank account

12,000 x 15 = $180,000

Now, $180,000 is not enough to get you a house in Cali or New York, but in the Midwest or South, you will have enough to pay for a house in cash. Keep in mind, that little formula above does not include investments which can earn you compound interest during that time. Now lets say you put your money in an investment that earns 15% interest:

12,000 x 0.15 = 1800 this is the interest you earn on your 12 grand in savings each year. Total amount is $13,800.
13,800 x 15 = $207,000 - this is how much you have in 15 years with interest rate of 15%

With that amount, you can basically buy a house. I mean, there is inflation and all that, but you can buy a house in cold hard cash.

So basically, anyone telling you it is impossible to buy a house in cash is full of sh*t.

 

Dude, I feel your pain not.
Things are tough all over...maybe you ought to come for a visit and come get to know some of us .

The people here no more run their country over than you obviously get to run yours. Understand that when it says Americans spent - read the government organization - spent those $$$ (that they take from our pay before we even get it by the way!). You will find you can't trust the "polls" that the official news media puts out. A great deal you "know" about America (esp. USA) is from the propaganda machines. When I was younger, we had a saying "question authority". That IS dangerous to do over here as well but it bears "thinking" about.

They got the guns and the judges and the jails and while we still insist on some semblance of a decent lifestyle when we can, doesn't mean we are stupid, just that after the payments to the government to allow <i>US</i> to live here, we are happy to enjoy what we can have rather than bemoan the fact we aren't one of the elite "millionaires" around.

I might suggest the central Appalachian region in your quest to understand why we don't always consider ourselves "poor" even if we don't have lots of money.

Here's to transworld understanding
peace friend
the Patrician

 

One more thing I forgot to mention in my last post. Once you save up the $200,000 grand in 15 years, don't buy a house while the market is up. Wait for the market to get the way it is right now, and buy up properties for a fraction of their cost. That way, most of the 200 grand will stay in your bank account(s).

There are houses right now in Michigan that are so cheap, that I could buy them, and I don't have anywhere near $200 grand............yet. I'm working on it.

Anyway, never use mortgage loans folks, They are crap. Winners get houses without going in debt. Cash is king!!!!!!!!

Some of you will probably post asking how in the heck can you save 30% of your income.........stay tuned, I'm writing a ebook to show you how I did it personally, and how you can do the exact same thing...............without living in a cave.

 

Maybe if we stopped wasting tax dollars on ungrateful nations and started spending it on the homeland, things would change. We gave more money than any other nation after the tsunami and yet they complained that we were greedy and didnt give enough.

The defense budget will always be huge until some of the appropriations laws are changed. As for Star Wars, the missle defense program is a very good idea. Iran and Korea cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. Moreso Iran than Korea. The ability of a nation to defend its people should not offend anyone. As for education, I agree with you. More needs to be done. Health is an entirely different problem. Health care costs are out of control. The US spends more on health care than Canada and yet Canada can provide free health care and still have a budget surplus. The problem here in the states is that too many people file lawsuits for rediculous reasons and many people on welfare abuse public health services.

As for building weapons to "kill all those poor Iraqi people", let me tell you right now that you dont have a clue of anything going on in Iraq. The media only focuses on the bad things that occur but they never highlight anything positive. More Iraqis have been killed at the hands of Iraqis than by the hands of US soldiers. In war, there will always be civilian casualties. Unfortunately, the war in Iraq isnt a conventional war and thus there are more civilian casualties. If the US was purposly murdering Iraqi people, we wouldnt be charging US soldiers for war crimes... which reverts back to my point about people only seeing the bad side of war and never seeing any of the positive things occuring in Iraq.

So the next time you think we're killing poor Iraqi people, ask yourself why Sunni and Shiite are killing eachother. I think its reminiscent of the movie "Hotel Rwanda"

 

The best way to action that is to stop taking so much from those of us that work.

It's still a fraction compared to the near 60% in social spending...

Military Spending = 16% of the entire federal budget
Social Spending = 56% of the entire federal budget
Foreign Affairs Spending = %1

Looks like we give way more away to those Americans that do not work, than we do to other countries...

Source: Us Department of the Treasury and House Budget Committee. (2006).

 

How is America poor...Where did Bill Gates and Google come from...

And Donald Trumph.

( I am pretty sure Google, And Bill gates came from CA )

 

and what are they? Like .01 of all American?

 

Y, that's like comparing the 3 richest oil sheiks to their respective countries

Omar has 7 yachts, one for each day of the week but Akbar makes $2 a week

 

America isn't all about wealth. Most of the people there don't really give a crap about their future, or have small goals.

 

True but CA is the richest state in califorina and if we seperated from the USA we would still be in the top ten of earners.

as well Bill Gates and Google And Youtube Helps our average alot anyways .

The US just up'd it's minimum wage and by no means are most americans poor as well we also have a higher standard of living then most other countries.

 

I guess you pay no taxes on your $40,000 in income.

Oh yeah, and your math is messed up to. 15% return for each of the 15 years is not realistic. If you think it is, please tell everyone where to get 15%.

Second, you under-calculate the interest. Year 1 would be on $12,000, year 2 on $24,000 (plus interest made year 1), year 3 on $36,000 (plus interest made in years 1 and 2). You have calculated the interest only on the new money each year. I suggest some economics classes.

Good luck with that e-book. I am sure there are many clueless people who will eat it up.

 

Hey, a couple more earthquakes and you might be separated whether you like it or not

 

That would only be good for us

What prodiges has any other country had...waiting

 

CA as in California, or Communist Canada? Bill Gates is from Redmond, Washington. USA

 

CA = CALI of course not canada lol...funny you would even say that O_O as I am sure you know what I meant.


Capitalist will always be the richest...We don't get taxed 50%

And washington is still USA

 

But I bet he has 1-3 houses in CA

 

LOL at least...lmao..If not a few small communities of houses. CA houses cost the most o_o because people her tend to be more succesful I agree most people don't care about what they should make as well as some people's life goal is to get a house. And that is pathetic. But the well driven capitalists make more then some countries


as for Askir making 2$ a week he needs to find DP so he can do forum posting much more money for him ...could make him rich in his country.

P.S.S. Where is the founder of Digital Point from? You guessed it USA. And he has an Alexa ranking of 31. So yea..we are sooo poor...

 

This was random since I learn about this today...

Do you know most poor people in America have homes, Colored TV, Air conditioning, and eat more than 1 meal every day.The poorest place in America has all of the above. Most of them go to hunger shelters just to get a free meal... not because they are starving.

In my Senior Social class, we called any 2 Parent family with 2 kids making $60,000 a year poor. compare that with $1,000 a year in India...

Also, on the news last year a basketball player said he was poor and could barely support his family .... WHY??? because he ONLY made $320 Million a year! ... O! he's right, we people should start a tax just for poor basket ball people making less than 9 figures. Since we all know $320,000,000 < $1000.

Yeah... so when we say poor. We Americans don't mean like 3rd world country poor. We just mean we can't buy anything at any time.

 

AFAIK, he has one big ass house in Washington (State that is).. It was the worlds first smart home.. Apparently, very advanced at its time in terms of technology.. Kinda like a model home for X10 so to speak.