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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

Interesting anecdotal examples of these people wilfully sacrificing longer term goals for short term satisfaction.

It feels like a semi-predictable outburst of the-need-for-joy following the dour years of Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions and general down-sentiment; a society-wide emotional pressure relief valve.

I can't see it playing out as any kind of long-term pattern because it's unsustainable, but having said that, there are 300 million Americans with different scales of tolerance, and so the relief valve could be steaming along for quite some time. The sustainability being how willing people are to work longer in life to pay off their debts.

What happens when an increasing number of people die with debts? Is this a likely scenario?

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> It feels like a semi-predictable outburst of the-need-for-joy following the dour years of Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions and general down-sentiment; a society-wide emotional pressure relief valve.

According to the article, it seem more like the onset of a doomer mentality.

Why save for a tomorrow that you might not live to see? What if all your sacrifice and planning is for naught? Better to experience life now when you are healthy as you might not be in the future (e.g. long covid, dead, ...) and can no longer do so.

I think everyone subconsciously does a risk-benefit analysis. The more uncertain things are, i.e. higher risk, the more ROI you demand from your investments. If investments aren't giving you the returns you want for a certain level of risk ... you just don't invest - which is what this is about; uncertainty has reduced the attractiveness of long term investment for people and making (less risky) short term investments comparatively more attractive.

> According to the article, it seem more like the onset of a doomer mentality.

>Why save for a tomorrow that you might not live to see?

Wanting to set a floor for quality of life for your children?

Going by society's (total fucking lack of) reaction to climate change, there is only a preciously small percentage of people who care much at all for the quality of life of their children.

... which explains how we got here in the first place.

Presumably banks don’t give out loans to older people without any property.

If you are going to sell your house to go on vacations… I don’t think too many people will do that. Say you sell at 40 … well you still have a lot of mortgage left so the bank gets their part and maybe you get like 50k profit which is not debt.

If you sell your home when you’re older, it’s your money so no debt either.

Banks only give out so much credit card debt without collateral. Presumably somebody did the math with how much they are willing to lose.

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