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An economic lesson...
(lemmy.world)
We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
Partnerships:
/join #antiwork
)
I mean they are correct. You should try to save up enough money to be able to live 2 ( or even 3 ) months without salary. Regardless of your political opinion on how a system we live in should be you should try to do that just for your own benefit and safety sake.
Besides one statment dosent exclude the other. Once again regardless of your opinions abut the system we live in pepole should have basic financial literacy to know that they should save up some money and not use credit cards as much as possible and other basic stuff ( you would be suprised how many pepole have no idea how it works or why you should save money instead of treating credit cards with horrendus intrest rates as you emergency fund )
Issue is, salaries are not enough, some credit cards give great benefits and cashbacks, and sadly the credit system is being exported to other countries, it is no longer an US only problem.
First time I tried to get a mortgage, I got rejected by multiple banks due to my "inexistent credit footprint", which was just the local flavor of a credit score. The banks even offered to give me credit cards, encouraging me to use them and NOT pay them off to prove I had a good payer behavior. Got lucky and found a credit union who didn't ask for any of that but had higher interest rates, so lose-lose situation.
Just save up more money. If i remember correctly saving 20% was always standard where i live. Also there is no way bank would wilffuly advise you to not pay off your credit card. But yeach mortages suck. Actually cost of homes suck. Ina country where i live developers apparently have something like 30 to 40% profit margins which is crazy.
The response here to "people must be financially illiterate if they can't live without income for months!" is no, they aren't illiterate, they live in an economy designed to keep a ton of people in precarity.
Everyone understands it's nice to have some money set aside for rainy days. It's such a simple lesson that calling it "financial literacy" is almost condescending. The problem isn't that people haven't heard of saving, it's that decent-paying jobs aren't common, basic costs like housing and healthcare are rising rapidly, and even if you do everything right there are a thousand ways to get a fat bill dropped on your lap that takes you back to square one.
No . Pepole do not understand that. Pepole are dumb as f. Not everyone but there is more than sufficient number of pepole that have nothing saved up to call for better financial literacy. There are pepole living from paycheck to paycheck that make more than a hundred thousand dollars per year without any money saved up. Like i said the rapid cost of living crisis and the financial literacy are not colleralted. So long as there are pepole dumb enough to spend money in the casino or even worse on gachas so long there is not enough financial literacy. Is it to simple to call it financial literacy. Frankly speaking yes , it should be called something like personal finances but thats the term that everyone uses and i really dont give enough f about the name. Are there financialy literate pepole that have fallen on due to bad circumstances. Yes. Of course they are. Particulary young pepole that just dont have enough time to build their war chest . But it dosent change the fact that those pepole due to their better ability to deal with their personal finances have better chance to recover. It just as simple. Does that solve the underlaying systematic problem. Not really. But it allows pepole to better deal with said problem. Better is the enemy of good.
The predatory credit cards in the US should be not legal. They are exploiting people who don’t have so called “financial literacy” and encourage wasteful spending.
In Europe the US style credit cards don’t really exist and people just have debit cards. Also there is a social safety net, so people don’t have to rely on keeping money in the bank for when they become unemployed.