A couple of years ago my daughter asked me if we’re poor as we were passed by a bunch of classmates and their parents in their gorgeous, newish, super-sleek SUVs, while we trundled out of the school parking lot in our 12-year old, beat-up, dinged compact hatchback largely held together via duct tape and strategically placed Amazon bubble wrap.
I thought it was interesting that the quality of one’s car possession was equated in her mind to having money or wealth. Because as anyone who keeps tabs on US car loan and lease defaults knows, it clearly is not. In fact, having a nice new car, much less two or more, in an American household is perhaps better associated with massive, largely avoidable household debt. Not always, mind you, but quite frequently.
Every nice car has an opportunity cost: cars depreciate quickly and irrevocably. What could the money being spent on down- and monthly-payments have been invested in or spent on otherwise? Would it have increased family wealth?
These are the things that go through my mind every time I’m tempted to upgrade my car to an electric vehicle or pickup truck. The whole point of a vehicle is to get me from Point A to Point B. Since I travel about 10-15 miles total a week, mostly to swim practices, there is no logical justification for buying a new car, regardless that it’s quite embarrassing to be that car that no one else wants to park next to, because well… it’s a banger!
And these thoughts of mine coincide with today’s theme of US National Financial Awareness.
Americans, by and large, are not particularly savvy when it comes to finances or spending. This isn’t meant pejoratively; it’s beared out in numbers across almost all geographic scales.
So for the first time in a while, I’m actually pumped about one of the national days. I think it may have merit – unlike GIS Day, which I personally think is silly, but I know many, many people love for some reason – and they spend lots of money on GIS-promotion t-shirts that they could instead invest in retirement, but I digress and I’m mangling my days up…
In the US, most people can be accused of trying to keep up with the Joneses from time-to-time. Case in point: wanting to be able to say I had a PS5 to my friend who had one already was one of the foolish reasons I dropped money on a… Playstation 5. The PS4 was plenty good. And now the PS5 collects dust in the corner. But… okay, honestly, playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 may have been worth it. 😉
But affluence isn’t measured in financed (or dusty and paid-for) possessions. It’s measured in household wealth, income, and… (debt).
A lot of Americans driving nice cars and with PS5s and big houses are actually living paycheck-to-paycheck. (This likely at least partially explains the absolute terror of the white-collar workforce about AI rapidly diminishing their roles and salaries.) I just read that many Americans are (again) refinancing their mortgages this year to pay off their other debts – and presumably, lease newer cars? Most Americans (probably) don’t own their homes or cars outright, but actually, owe a lot of money on them. And this is really sad to me; because…
If my daughter’s first inclination is any indication, the cycle of debt is self-perpetuating and self-manifesting. Buy beyond your means to look like you’re living the American Dream; fall into (avoidable) debt; then work frantically and non-stop to buy (and often finance) more things to keep roleplaying the American Dream. The dream itself is a nightmare America doesn’t seem capable of waking up from.
Now surely, there are quite a few people (including many reading this blog) that can afford nice cars. (Hell, I have saved enough driving my current trashcan on wheels that I could afford one myself. But spending money on cars doesn’t make sense when there are new power tools and board games that I could instead purchase!) And many successful Americans are affluent. Likewise, many Americans cannot even afford a crappy hatchback. (Money best not spent, likely, as cars are money pits.) But my point is that the appearance of wealth and having money are two very different things. America has been appearing wealthy while bankrupting itself at the national and nuclear-family scale for decades. And it’s hard not to believe that this fact isn’t going to come home to roost soon.
This also goes for the stock market, which is due for a monumental crash in the relatively near future. (First of all: the market is cyclical, so crashes are inevitable. Second of all, AI investments are a bubble. They check every box of a Ponzi Scheme right now. Ponzi schemes are stellar if you get in early and out before the implosion; so get out while the money is good, I advise. Though, I only own a crappy hatchback, so take anything I say regarding investments with a grain of salt compared to your financial advisor in a Lexus.)
So many “wealthy” Americans right now feel wealthy because the S&P 500 keeps going up – never-ending gains. But when it crashes 50% or so in the next year or two, they will literally have 50% of what they thought they had. And given Americans tend to live on perceived wealth, not actual money under the mattress, this won’t be good. Because money in one’s Fidelity account is not real money when it is invested in index funds. It’s ether. It’s a mental stimulus. Stocks, mutual funds, and bonds are not wealth until you cash them out. So even a great 401(k) is illusionary. When (not if) everyone tries to sell at once, well… you know… it’s not worth anything. Same with your unpaid-for house and… well, cars are worth less and less everyday without any outside intervention. The good news? In Minnesota, at least, registration gets cheaper and cheaper every year – the hatchback only cost me $30 for tabs this year!
Anyway, these are all the things swirling in my head as I asked the Spatial Data Creator and Web Mapper GPT tools to help me create a map for Financial Awareness Day.
I decided to map debt by county. Different kinds of debt, naturally. Credit card, auto, and student loan debt, as well as medical debt – though, the latter dataset has a lot of null or missing data, unfortunately. Overall debt levels by household in different counties are included too.
The prognosis: the US is kind of as poor as I imagined. Not evenly. Not everywhere. But pretending you’re living the American Dream is expensive. And the real dream doesn’t seem particularly attainable.
Add to this the US government’s incredible financial debt – with interest payments now passing its total defense spending – and there isn’t much light at the end of the tunnel. There aren’t that many people left to tax to pay the debt off… And taxing the rich won’t cut it either, since it won’t make much of a dent in our trillion dollar interest payments.
It’s a pickle. All I can do is drive my hatchback into the ground and tell my kids not to be fooled by appearances. Save your money. Avoid the American Dream. Invest wisely. Don’t get greedy. Cash out before bubbles pop. Spend money on things that give your life value, meaning, and perhaps, help you earn more income (e.g., a new Mac for making prompt-based maps may be a better investment than new rims; a $20/month subscription to ChatGPT a better investment than Netflix; a new chain saw to cut down trees to provide your home with affordable heating… that last one is directly Minnesota related, I suppose).
Hopefully this map scares some people straight. For others, I hope it adds some nuance to the dire situation of debt across the US. No matter what, I hope you find it interesting to explore. (I asked Web Mapper to add some interactive charts to make it a bit more fun. Hey, even if the news is almost all bad, at least you can have fun. What’s more American than that?)
Have an awesome Financial Awareness Day!
View Map HereWeb Mapper GPT Prompt
Hi, I would like to create a dataset to celebrate Financial Awareness Day. Are tehre any good datasets out there that show average household income debt by county, or average household retirement savings, etc.?
If not, are there any US national datasets showing average state or county-level debt – via bonds, etc.? That may be even more interesting?
Please do some research and scour the internet and report back what you find about such datasets. I am not willing to pay for them, but I can set up a free API account to access them if that is requried. No problem.
Thank you!
Spatial Data Maker GPT Prompt
Please analyze the attached dataset of every county in the US and its various debt rates.
Create a US county map that a map user can zoom in on, explore, and examine, using different visualization, classifications, and chart techniques, please, showing US national debt county by county. Please allow for state zooms, county lookup, a static info box for specific counties, the ability to show or hide chart panels that are interactive and cross-filter with the map. Allow multi-select on the charts where it makes sense. Give the map a name related to a potential paucity of US Financial Awareness given debt across the US. Allow the user to switch between viewing a map and data of total debt, financial aid, auto, and medical (where medical exists).
I am attaching a Dashboard template. Please follow it as well as possible but you may diverge where it makes sense?