I just moved out of my landlord/roommate’s house. Holy crap, the dude’s spending, outrageous mortgage payment, gambling addiction, AND prior bankruptcy filing had me shaking my head. It is absolutely insane how some Americans live.
He’s resorted to not running the central air and renting out all the rooms in his house, including the mechanical room. You can imagine the clientele he rents to. The guy is pushing 50 years old.
I just got a pulse on how my coworkers live with the wages at our great paying job for the area. They're insane, it's literally all of them. Pulling out of 401k saying "it's my money why whouldn't I spend it" early penalties and taxes be damned, refusing to pay medical bills, vacations almost every quarter even after they run out of PTO, doordashing lunch every single day, never paying off credit cards, several of them are also gambling on fantasy sports and kalshi.
One of them even said "it doesn't matter if I'm driving a lambo or a hoopty, I'm always going to be paycheck to paycheck" and my brain cannot comprehend that. I was nearly homeless 8 years ago & have been utilizing our high wage for our LCOL rural area to build as strong of a financial foundation as possible so I can hopefully never fear having to sleep outside again. I don't get how these people are so incredibly short sighted even when some of them have multiple kids to protect against something like that
Sort of sounds like my brother without proof of his gambling problems. Know so many too that have been sucked into that. A lot of people say to invest too, but then some dude at my work showed me how there's going to be an ETF for betting on sports.
My son in law just started the bankruptcy process. He works. He makes decent money. He also has to pay child support to 2 baby mamas and has a spending problem. This will be his 2nd bankruptcy.
Pre Great Recession these same types of people who feed their credit card and car loans by multiple heloc s. I wouldn’t be surprised if some mid to high earners are doing this especially if they bought at the right time.
The fed will turn on the money printer, and we’ll end up with significant inflation again.
The fed saw they could trade a market crash for inflation and look at how well it worked. It juiced asset prices, and the working class is left to eat the loss as our wages haven’t caught up, even five years later.
The federal reserve’s new playbook is just treat every market hiccup with the money printer. They’re asset rich, as are their masters. Inflation actually helps them.
Eh that's unlikely outside of a true deep freeze. I'm in Boston and it gets plenty cold. Only cases of that tend to happen farther north when all power is knocked out for days on end and the house become as cold as the outside.
Counter-intuitively, burst pipes like that are actually more likely outside of super cold areas.
Houses in the northeast and the like tend to get built with their pipes in naturally insulated locations. Meanwhile, places like Texas or the Gulf South tend to have exposed piping that freeze and burst way easier in cold weather if they're not prepped properly (since it doesn't get legitimately cold as often).
Heck, in those areas (especially on wide open pier and beam foundations where lots of the pipes are functionally just sitting outside totally exposed), sometimes when it gets below freezing for even brief periods, the normal pencil-stream sometimes isn't enough to keep pipes from bursting.
There was a brief period in the 90s when gas ovens actually had a heater feature built in. But it wasn't the oven itself, just a separate heating element with a fan usually on the side. I assume that was deemed a carbon monoxide hazard because I haven't seen it since.
It’s the new opioid crisis in the making and this has consequence of tanking the economy for all
Edit: I also have to wonder how many billions of “disposable” money Americans spend on stupid unnecessary “treat yo self” couple uses before it sits forever bullshit on Amazon with the amount of trucks and delivery vehicles I see on the roads
I’ve been an alcoholic and made some dumb financial decisions in the past, but I am very happy that gambling has always been a once-every-few-years-on-a-predefined-budget ordeal and never got into the apps. Sounds like a genius business model that simply vacuums money out of the working class.
When my youngest went back to in-person high school after covid zoom school, she talked about how a large group of boys in her classes - colege-track classes like precalculus - constantly talked about how much they were betting on sports betting apps. I worry about those kids and wonder how they are doing. What's dumb and fun when you're 17 and living with your parents is much worse when you're 20 and paying for college and rent...
It's like a industrial vacuum in a pit of sawdust. Holy Jesus Christ they are filling the vacuum. The app has flashing lights and is addictive. It's so easy to link your debit card. Your paycheck was only $300 last week. What have you, as the lower class, got to lose? Go ahead and bet on Kalshi!
Imagine the lower class. Most of them will never earn over 50k a day in their lives. You cant imagine how seductive the idea of earning ten thousand dollars is. You cant imagine how much that means to someone at the very bottom scraping the sand. They flock to Kalshi like moths to a incandescent bulb
dude, I had a former coworker as of a couple months ago. Guy was homeless a month after he came back from initial training, where he was given a per diem, rental car, hotel suite, and base pay. His mom's place got condemned or sold and his mom moved in with his cousin who he hates so he lived out of his car. no bank account, shit credit. He couldn't get a place to live for over a month because no place would rent to him. He got to travel for work, thankfully for his sake, and built up a bit of money accordingly because he wasn't hand to mouth as his housing, food, and gas were all paid for. He got deep into daily sports betting. To the point where he was gambling paychecks at a time on games in progress. "The Astros are up on The Rangers by 3 in the 8th! It's guaranteed money" for his 3% return. He kept betting it all, and kept losing every so often. It culminated with him betting 400 hours of his gross pay on Argentina in the World Cup Finals. This was while he was already being heavily disciplined at work, constantly caused problems, was bottom of the charts, etc. He ended up quitting a few weeks later in a ridiculous fashion including threats to the company, supervisors, and people around him. Gambling can ruin people, but it can take already damaged people and drive them deep into the ground.
I personally lump that shit in with the sports betting apps - it’s all gambling I don’t care what legaleze they use to tiptoe around regulation. But you’re right. For the sake of this discussion, I should’ve mentioned them separately because Polymarket and Kalshi are equally addictive problems that are categorized slightly differently
this is why I keep my gambling in either season long fantasy football leagues where it's an investment in shit talking folks, or as a percentage of my funsies brokerage account (which is about 15% of my regular investment brokerage account, separate from 401k and IRA) making plays on mostly straight stock but options on occasion as a lower percentage (always covered). It's nice when you do something like a 10x return on a year of holding MRNA, dip out, then come back 3 years later and 5x return 2 years later.
I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice, this is for entertainment purposes and me bragging of plays i've made. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. I owned 5000 shares in NVDA back in 2008 and mined bitcoin for a wallet stored on a harddrive I lost back in 2012 so fuck me right? Gambling be gambling, and investment also is those rolls of the dice, only with slightly less degeneracy when you play it straight.
It’s not that. The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket are Gen Z Draft Kings CEO is 46. Fan Duel CEO is 52. All these people recognized their peers and thus target audience is addicted to the instant gratification of social media, video games and fantasy sports. It’s a predatory evolution of gaming and esports
Grooming is using a child’s vulnerability and naïveté to get them to accept something that is bad for them but good for you. Adults can and do fall into the habit but they typically have more restraint, and at least know what they are doing. Children often don’t realize they are spending real money. Gambling is an addiction, and an addiction started young will be harder to break.
if you think adults know what they're doing, you haven't experienced enough life yet. We are fumbling through life, but we have more consequences than we did as children. Similar struggles, more experience, and more responsibility. Adults still fall prey to their own naïveté like "They told me the loved me!" and "It's a surefire investment!" and "A timeshare sounds like a great idea!" A sucker is born every second.
You don't enjoy opening gifts? "Grooming" is overly used, especially as these short lived trends are youth driven. Only takes getting burned to learn. I mean, grown ass people bought NFTs for buckets of money. 🤑 Is playing poker with pretzels or candy "grooming"? Life is a game of risk, you gotta learn how to navigate that by practicing.
I would wager that for a not insignificant portion of these people, this money isn't really disposable. They see gambling and hitting it big as the only way out of the economic hellscape they're in.
These are likely people placing $5-$20 dollar bets at a time with high stakes that pay out many times their money, but hardly ever pay off. People trying to get ahead by sacrificing a few bucks here and there. Look how many poor people play the lottery. It’s the same gatcha.
Probably but unlike the lottery where it’s a few days out of the week or once a day, the apps it’s $5-$20 multiple times per game, multiple times per day
More than just sports betting with those bullshit bet on anything sites like Kalshi. The free market has all the solutions to all the problems it creates! Trust the invisible hand! /s
The big worry is all those AI data centers using “off-grid” sites and using transmission gas pipelines instead of electrical grid connections. I actually think that contrary to what the developers say, this will place an even bigger burden on ratepayers and homeowners because who else uses the natural gas for heating and electricity but the utilities and the homeowners? And the sheer amount of natural gas many of them have acquired simply to service energy intensive 4GW+ AI campuses using extremely inefficient single cycle turbines (since they can’t get combined cycle anymore due to the shortages) that are basically only 25-35% efficient is just insane. I firmly believe America will have a natural gas shortage soon enough and a lot of the public are totally blind to it. It’s utterly insane how these facilities get approved especially under the falsehood of them eliminating the burden on ratepayers cause “they aren’t connected to an electrical grid”. They are always “connected to a grid” believe me, it’s just either the gas grid or the electrical grid, either way, regular people get screwed.
No, it’s not just gas supply. Pipeline capacity matters enormously. The AI campuses consume so much energy (an unprecedented amount of energy) that they alone would cause major gas pipeline congestion (sometimes even using almost the entirely of a single transmission pipeline capacity) in most of the sites proposed. And it is extremely difficult and time consuming to build new interstate gas transmission pipelines and to build all the new compressor stations needed for it and guess what, all of those costs also get billed directly to the people and utilities using the natural gas through those pipelines. There may be some exceptions where an AI campus might be built near a massive oversupply of gas like the Permian basin but that’s a tiny minority of the proposed sites and even they will have cascading effects during the winter when utilities would have to pay more for the “cheap gas” when they used to pay next to nothing, hence inflating consumer bills. Keep in mind that many if not most utilities function on a marginal price mechanism where the most expensive electricity generation source (usually natural gas especially in winter) sets the total electricity price billed to consumers. So even if the natural gas isn’t “used”, it still is often passed on to consumers anyway.
Either way, it is an enormous bubble and the developers know it isn’t remotely sustainable cost and reliability wise, they just plan to socialise the cost to the taxpayers when shit hits the fan in a year or two when the bubble bursts. It will make the Dotcom bubble look downright tame.
Well none of them have really been built yet (aside from the Louisiana one). I highly doubt most will or at least of the ones that do get built, they would suffer from some “unforeseen” reliability and stability failures within about 2 years (which were obvious from the start, as most of those setups are not resilient whatsoever from a power system perspective).
This is the chilly elephant in the room. Stocks are low-demand remains high-and I'm starting my season full....it's going to be ugly here in the Northeast
Guess what prolonged cold weather without adequate heating and shelter does, too? It makes you more likely to require medical assistance. Guess what Americans who can't afford heat also can't afford? Guess what malnourishment (including not just "less food" but also "bad food"), overwork, stress, poverty, etc. all contribute to? Yep. More medical expenses.
The US didn't use to have requirements for medical insurance, it's a relatively recent thing: "Hospital and medical expense policies were introduced during the first half of the 20th century."
There's a point at which this collapses in on itself and you need a decent government to put in safeguards to stop that happening, and support programmes to help those in need. Guess what the US doesn't have?
Two more winters, minimum. Let's hope you don't get anything like, oh, I don't know, unusual extreme weather caused by global climate change...
Talking a few times with the oil company for my home heat, they're trying to scramble past the competition to get very scarce supplies in for pre-buy plans. They already ran out of plans in a week the first time around.
I lost my business at the end of 2025 and am filing personal bankruptcy now because I had to personally guarantee all of the equipment loans taken out for my business (even though I was an LLC). Rising expenses (tariffs on raw materials, utilities, rent, insurance went through the roof) and clients cutting back their spends due to their own financial squeeze was the end of us. It’s amazing how quickly everything unraveled.
If there was ever a place to examine the disconnect between lived experiences, look no further than Reddit.
About 1/3 of the users here are making more money than ever before (mostly programmers, finance, and software engineers) and absolutely cannot accept or believe that the economy is in terrible shape. This group hides behind reports and statistics because they are so far removed from reality that they literally can’t imagine how bad it is for the rest of the world. These are your homeowners, your 6-figure earners, your stock market participants, etc.
I’d say about 1/2 of the users are feeling it in every aspect of their lives. Every single facet of life has outpaced their wage growth; rent, groceries, basic computer hardware, access to amenities, etc. These people are middle class, but are slowly slipping into lower-middle class, are conscious of the slide, and powerless to do anything about it. These are your full-time employees making between $45-78k~ a year, renters, people who have jobs for the health insurance, likely make some small form of contribution to a 401k, have student loans/a car payment/some degree of semi-manageable debt.
The remaining 1/5 are those who are already underwater/drowning. They were already barely getting by, and are now leveraged into the red. These are you people working for sub-$45k~ a year, sometimes working 2 jobs, only to still be behind their payments. They are priced out of life. This demographic is moving towards bankruptcy and poverty, if they aren’t already there. This includes your minimum wage workers, retirees, disabled, low-opportunity area renters, government employees, elderly, and new graduates with substantial student loan debt burdens. This is who cannot understand how people are optimistic about the economy because they are financially trapped and see no way out of the hole.
> If there was ever a place to examine the disconnect between lived experiences, look no further than Reddit.
The ratios you provided seem to just reflect the general household income distribution in the US.
The bottom 20% is sub $30k-ish so yeah that's poverty.
The middle "1/2 of users" (20%-80%) is like $30k to $175k. Even on the top end of that, especially if you add kids, you'd be feeling the price increases.
I feel this. I have client using basic prompts on free AI tools and generating really terrible tech specifications.
I come in, tell him he can get his whole infrastructure hack (he had infrastructure with the assumption you cannot get a Public RSA key out of a message that was encrypted with that RSA key.... Now with one message this is true, if an observer sees two messages that it knows the plain text of thats a 10 second crack). Yes he assumed the public key was private. Go to a Free AI tool, I know exactly what he did; He asked if you can get a the Public RSA Key out of a message encrypted with the Public Key... the AI Tool correctly said No. But this guy did not ask... what if this message was of foreign origin and my device blindly encrypts it with the Public Key and sends it back?
I am not even programming any more. I am sending very techical emails and creating highly technical documentation. Much more than before... before we barely even documented much of anything because when you had to program this programming took all of the time... so with AI now there is time to document so all of the time saved on programming went into documenting and dunking on the client for being a moron.
Nah, it’s more if you sucked or were mediocre at programming you’re likely to lose your job. It’s just exposing people who could barely code themselves out of a paper bag being shown the door.
It’s just before AI they needed someone, anyone, but that don’t cut it anymore.
I don’t have any sympathies for this field. Everyone here makes substantially more money than they are worth. The oligarchs are just squeezing white collar this time around.
Why? Believe it or not, not everyone working in software dev makes 6 figures. A lot of us are normal people living in normal places trying to make a living like everyone else.
The duality of working in banking. I make good money while I see others struggle and taking out personal loans to survive. Some of it is just them falling on hard times. For others, it's likely some of wanton vice [shopping, gambling, drugs].
I’m jealous of people with addictions because I’m straight up disabled, no hope of working in the future. I wish I could at least enjoy my race to the bottom
Gen Z men's addiction to sports betting is gonna put most of them in the poor house. One of the main ways to fight said addiction is to simply not watch sports which is essentially impossible for them.
Are you saying that if you have a history of problematic sports betting, even watching sports becomes difficult? Like that’s a major male bonding behavior in many circles, I can see why that would be super hard to give up. Like men are lonely enough, and that would tank their social life.
It's like alcoholism in that regard. Can you go to a bar, hangout with friends while they get drunk and you stay sober? Few people have that much self-control.
The hiding behind stats thing really hits me. I see the stock market hit an ATH the same day I am facing eviction, homelessness, and complete disaster. And I am not alone.
The programmers at my place are part time now because our major clients are chucking money into AI and making-do with the slop, and nobody seems to be holding them accountable for the quality issues.
I’m part of that 1/3 but I’m not that dense to not see what’s going on around us. I post my info regularly but I also understand I’m closer to living on the street than being a billionaire.
I am in finance/law making more money than I have ever made before and I absolutely accept, believe, and have been living my life knowing we’d be heading for a depression level reset with trump 2.0. The metrics used to measure economic health are antiquated; the statistics are disconnected from the reality of most people.
Same here. I’m basically 20 years in to my career in fintech and finding AI helping in so many ways. My wife is going back to work part time after leaving the work force for having kids. She doesn’t have to. We realize the bubble we’re live in is real.
Though, I can’t wait to get out of this field. I want something much more low key eventually.
I’ve met plenty of those poorer people and seen their houses.
they’ve been blowing money on crap, vapes, Magic cards, drugs, alcohol, and all sorts of degenerate stuff that they have plenty of power and control over but their egos are constantly in the way of accepting personal responsibility for their lives.
making above $45k is plenty a year, if you’re not looking for fancy solo apartment in a fancy city, with coffee out every day, a new car, and eating stupidly.
and for sure, don’t have kids if you won’t be responsible enough for them.
A big problem I think also is that people just spend too much and want too much. Sure there are many people who are having a hard time making ends meet but many of those people somehow have a 5-10k gaming pc. Then you have the so called middle to middle and upper class. They make decent money but they grow into the money and buy nice things instead of saving. They take out a 30 year mortgage that they can barely afford. They do the same thing with their cars and this spreads into other aspects of their lives.
In the end, yes, part of the affordability crisis is indeed that things are just more expensive than before. The other part of it is just that people cannot control themselves. Then when they lose their job or something unexpected happens everything comes tumbling down and they blame the economy, inflation, anything else but themselves.
I make a good salary right now. Emphasis on right now. Who knows when I will not. I save and budget so that when shit hits the fan I will be able to hopefully survive. I could have taken out a mortgage for a multimillion dollar home. I bought a modest home I can pay off quickly. I did the same with my car before the home. Paid it off in a few months. No mommy and daddy don’t have money. They are broke so yes I had to take out loans. When I buy groceries I buy great value and the like. I always look for discounts or offers whenever I buy things. I frequently buy things used off eBay to save money. Obviously we are not all in the same position but this is the mindset people should be having. Not always focused on buying buying buying.
A change in mindset with self control and discipline can go a long way. No one wants to do that though. So many people are brainwashed into buying everything they see and think they can somehow fund it all with get rich quick schemes and ideas they see on social media. I don’t blame them though. That is what they see, learn, and end up wanting and believing. Sad state of affairs.
You’re talking about some things that like 30% of people can’t even consider. Paying off cars in a couple of months and bragging about personal responsibility, budgeting, and buying great value? A huge chunk of us have been doing that for our entire lives and it’s never gotten better and it’s only gotten worse. There are definitely a significant chunk of people that are doing all of these things that you’re describing and need to be minimized. However, what you’re describing is such a slap in the face to us that have chosen to work in life saving fields while making shit wages, or some just havent had the same opportunities to make a better living or have had worse luck.
People can hardly budget their way out of poverty making 45k a year, particularly if they are underwater on any debts or have anything go wrong. Just like America can’t refinance its way out of 40 trillion in debt. You’re worried about personal responsibility, but only acknowledging that portion of it is being willfully blind as fuck.
Edit: sorry in advance for my tone. Ended up being colored with more resentment and anger than I intended and less objective. Still, putting the onus on individual responsibility and spending when a huge swath of people are one bad day away from being homeless is, in my opinion, an incredibly ignorant and privileged take.
I’m not the guy you responded to but what’s inaccurate about this stat: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
This shows that real median wages have been rising since 2022. What am I missing here when folks say wages aren’t keeping up with inflation? I’m asking earnestly, I’d genuinely like to improve my understanding
edit: I don’t care about the downvotes but maybe at least one person could explain what I’m missing? This is the economics sub, after all
A better look for national economic health is how many workers, percentage wise are making the lowest sums right now? How much of the economy is actually owned by the largest workforce here? It paints the actual picture of jobs disappearing, education and upward mobility being changed to a caste system, and basic essentials putting people into debt after working a full 40 hour week.
The median wage disguises the lowest earners, which is why republicans use it so often.
I don’t think that you should be downvoted and upvoted you for the record.
The real median wages argument is one of the (in my opinion several) things that are keeping us generally above water as economically and societally speaking. I think this discussion is the crux of the issue and thank you for bringing up the Fred data.
I’m not an economist and work in more human research that considers a lot of sociological factors. This is something I’ve been trying to understand and untangle more myself. I don’t have an answer—and if there were a singular answer—I don’t think we’d be in this position in the first place, but there are a lot of interesting things I’ve seen posited. Personally and professionally, I observe a lot of people underwater that are struggling in the day to day sense working jobs integral to our society’s function hampered by circumstances largely outside of their control. Some of which, I do think the Baumol effect could be playing a role. The United States largely being a service economy at this point has a significant number of essential service based jobs that are dead end and becoming increasingly less appealing and more competitive. Meanwhile the government is chipping away at x y or z which I don’t care to get into for the sake of this conversation.
I don’t have the nomenclature or numbers on hand, but I’d venture to guess on my non expert opinion that the middle class is diverging and many of the higher earners within are making up for the losses down the line in more profitable industries such as real estate, insurance, etc.
For a good chunk of those folks, those with out a higher leg up also are more vulnerable to medical, credit, car, housing, college debts and can get under water without a second thought. It’s okay cause we’ll bail the banks out anyway. If that’s something you really want to talk about, let’s talk about financial education, literacy, and policy. Let’s talk about our literacy and math stats in general lol. If we want to talk about personal responsibility, we can start there.
All of this is happening while you can manage a semi livable life, but for the folks who aren’t in the middle class or are on the lower end and on the outs? Life is tough and hard and day to day. People die from heart attacks because they can’t afford going to the doctor and some that do go to the doctor are saddled with incredible debt. For these people, our system is borderline unlivable. If you want to tell them to strap up and about personal responsibility, I’m sure they’d love to swap shoes. To be clear, that’s not angled at you, but the poster above. I appreciate your contribution.
To circle back, numbers by themselves mean very little to me. Something to note, but to me that’s where the science starts. As an example from my field in neuroscience, if you did wanted to find out what was happening in the brain while doing 2+2 using something like EEG, MEG, fMRI, or others imagine methods, you would likely see a lot of activation in the occipital and motor cortexes. However that isn’t what is happening when trying to untangle what 2+2 is, what’s happening is they are receiving visual information and moving. Same thing with the fed rate. Not a perfect analogy of course, but that Fred data doesn’t mean much to me without considering the underlying data and phenomenon. Without acknowledging any of those things, the numbers are meaningless. And if someone try’s to tell you otherwise, they don’t know what they don’t know in my opinion.
Edit: also before u economist with a d or any other people come for me about the K shaped economy, I’m happy to discuss the nitty gritty and nuance of those numbers.
Last edit: apologies for the sloppy typos, mistakes, and more. Too many and I went on too long to fix and now I have to live my real life haha. Feel free to comment if something isn’t clear because I know there were a lot of mistakes and/or assumptions made.
Thanks for the reply. I definitely agree that a lot of people are financially struggling even when the broader wage data looks decent, especially if they’re carrying debt, can't amass savings or are hit with medical bills.
I’m still a little confused by a couple parts though. Higher earners can pull up an average but not really a median. If the real median is rising, earnings around the 50th percentile are actually rising after inflation. And I’m curious what you mean about the Baumol effect here. My (limited) understanding is that part of that mechanism is wages rising even in sectors without corresponding productivity growth so I’m not sure how it explains what we’re talking about.
I get where you’re coming from. Hyper-consumerism and living perpetually beyond your means is foolish. But life is hard, and getting harder. Let people buy what brings them happiness as long it’s not bankrupting them. A frugal jerk isn’t better than an over-spender.
Yes, up until a year or ago, some folks were too comfortable being part of the problem. One of the more positive outcomes I see from AI is making the pain of a cultural and economic reset less than the pain of continuing to be part of the problem.
Software engineers are the most self-absorbed people you will ever meet in your life. There’s a reason so many people loathe anyone from the Bay Area; they’re petulant narcissists through and through.
I find there is a huge variety. Some are just regular people, some are smug assholes but ultimately normal, some are straight up sociopathic, openly fantasizing about destroying democracy and crushing the poor. There used to be social consequences for the third type, but people have become desensitized.
This article feels very disingenuous. It compares 2025 bankruptcies against 2022 which was the lowest number of bankruptcies in the country in decades and was likely heavily influenced by Covid related policies/stimulus - that is not an appropriate baseline.
Bankruptcies fillings are growing, but they’re significantly down relative to the 2010s where bankruptcy filings never got below ~750k.
As mentioned, 2022 was the lowest number of bankruptcies in decades. To be more specific, it was the lowest since the 1980s when the US had ~100m fewer people. You could not have picked a bigger outlier than 2022.
Also, I exclusively listed the year with the lowest number of bankruptcies during the 2010s which was 2019 at ~750k. I don’t think the Great Recession can be assigned as a significant contributor to bankruptcies in at least the latter third of that decade. But fine, if that’s not sufficient for you. How about this: The number of non business bankruptcies in 2025 that this article sensationalizes was lower than every single year in the 2010s, 2000s, and 90s (again, despite the population growing by nearly 100m).
No - at least not based on this data. The number of non business bankruptcies in 2025 that this article sensationalizes was lower than every single year in the 2010s, 2000s, and 90s (despite the population growing by nearly 100m over that time).
Americans have so much money now they can’t comprehend it and don’t know what to do with it so they are filing for bankruptcy now instead of paying their bills.
I can read the sarcasm now, thanks. Although, you really never know on here. I read so many unhinged, rage-bait, polarized takes that I take words at face value, unless otherwise indicated.
They will acquire even more wealth when they abandon their homes and default on their mortgages. Moving into transient shantytowns built from materials at hand, these ruggedly patriotic individualists will name their new communities "Trumpervilles" to honor the man who made it all possible.
Guys, this is another one of those shock articles that presents an incomplete picture of the data to generate outrage.
They use 2022 as the benchmark, but that was basically the lowest number of personal bankruptcies in my lifetime. If we want to cherry pick stats like this author did, we could alternatively say that personal bankruptcies have fallen by 75% since 2005! Or we could say that personal bankruptcies are only one third the numbers of the late 1990s!
Economics articles from places like Salon, Newsworld, etc... are all just designed to make us angry. And they are probably misrepresenting the actual data (possibly by accident, given that they aren't exactly the most economically or business savvy publications).
The wealthy have been moving Jenga blocks since the 1990s, like growth that would even make cancer blush. 2008 was a small wobble. Eventually, who knows when, there will be no more blocks to move. I don’t know about the rest of you but Klarna for fast food does not inspire hope. Without a steady foundation of blocks at the bottom you can only grow into a collapse.
>Eventually, who knows when, there will be no more blocks to move.
What does this mean in terms of economics?
>I don’t know about the rest of you but Klarna for fast food does not inspire hope.
Most people are smart enough not to mindlessly follow clickbait articles. I bet you would have gotten your panties in a bunch when grocery stores started accepting credit cards as well.
>Without a steady foundation of blocks at the bottom you can only grow into a collapse.
Again, what does this mean in economic terms? There needs to be a bunch of poor people at the bottom?
You seem to be struggling with analogies. Credit cards, which exploded under “Reganomics” That was one of the first blocks. The loss of manufacturing jobs felt less so because people could now use credit. Then came, glass steagall ,40 year amortization of mortgages, CDS etc… It’s all about expanding the consumer base while removing resources to make it seem like natural growth in place of sustainable growth. You are probably too young and are just used to things being shitty to really understand.
You only have to look at China’s middle class growth as an inversion to North American’s middle class decline. Every brand and company that really represented the middle class in North America has been replaced by dollar stores and Amazon dupes.
In terms of economics you need a critical mass of consumers to purchase goods for the market to work. If we keep removing those things that support the critical mass (good paying jobs),and the market continues to squeeze consumers even more (Fees on top of fees, endless subscriptions) no one will be able to afford anything and companies will continue to die off. Like the bread has gone stale and the circus has left town if you know what I mean.
The obvious vagueness in it should have set off people's bullshit detectors. But there are too many people on reddit, and in this sub, who credulously believe anything on the internet that confirms their own vibes.
Note that using raw numbers instead of rates or per capita or some other measure is often a way that people are trying to bullshit you, so you need to adjust your bullshit detectors accordingly.
Here are nonbusiness bankruptcy rates per 1000 people
2010: 6.5 bankruptcies
2015: 3.4
2019: 3.0
2022: 1.4
2025: 2.0
So filings are up since their historical low, but historically filings are still really really low.
And, again, it's telling that the article itself didn't provide any of this useful context.
Looks like you are dismissing the reversing trend based on the small numbers. It’s signaling the K economy. The previous decline in bankruptcies appeared to coincide with the rising stock market. Well that market is still rising and now too are bankruptcies. There’s been a decoupling. And I bet if you are not feeling it now, you will be in the not so distant future.
Maybe something worth considering 🤷♂️ do it like the rich used to do it. Get a massive loan, study live like a king, get a few degrees, declare bankruptcy, they can't repo your knowledge.
The you are clear to start your life again after a break essentially with no debt. (it's been patched I'm sure, but that's literally one way they made it work)
I’m heading into retirement in two months with no debt at all
I know people that spent every penny they had and freaking out about retirement now
I’m glad I lived with in a budget
anonymousasu | 16 hours ago
I just moved out of my landlord/roommate’s house. Holy crap, the dude’s spending, outrageous mortgage payment, gambling addiction, AND prior bankruptcy filing had me shaking my head. It is absolutely insane how some Americans live.
He’s resorted to not running the central air and renting out all the rooms in his house, including the mechanical room. You can imagine the clientele he rents to. The guy is pushing 50 years old.
woah_man | 16 hours ago
You say degenerate gambler, we say house hacker.
Tall-Control8992 | 15 hours ago
Modern hustler!
8ngryW0lf999 | 11 hours ago
Nothing pushed someone down a financial cliff faster than a gambling habit.
Zephyr_Dragon49 | 6 hours ago
I just got a pulse on how my coworkers live with the wages at our great paying job for the area. They're insane, it's literally all of them. Pulling out of 401k saying "it's my money why whouldn't I spend it" early penalties and taxes be damned, refusing to pay medical bills, vacations almost every quarter even after they run out of PTO, doordashing lunch every single day, never paying off credit cards, several of them are also gambling on fantasy sports and kalshi.
One of them even said "it doesn't matter if I'm driving a lambo or a hoopty, I'm always going to be paycheck to paycheck" and my brain cannot comprehend that. I was nearly homeless 8 years ago & have been utilizing our high wage for our LCOL rural area to build as strong of a financial foundation as possible so I can hopefully never fear having to sleep outside again. I don't get how these people are so incredibly short sighted even when some of them have multiple kids to protect against something like that
ElectroMagnetsYo | 8 hours ago
The fool was probably hitting the slots this whole time. Get this man to a baccarat table and he’ll make it all back, trust me
IcyMaybe7594 | 10 hours ago
Sort of sounds like my brother without proof of his gambling problems. Know so many too that have been sucked into that. A lot of people say to invest too, but then some dude at my work showed me how there's going to be an ETF for betting on sports.
MincedBrat | 42 minutes ago
I mean you were living there
mistressbitcoin | 12 hours ago
Sounds like the typical redditor, terrified the economy will collapse and blaming politicians.
AlmanorDiscard | 11 hours ago
> Sounds like the typical redditor,
You have bitcoin in your username.
>terrified the economy will collapse and blaming politicians.
The current crop of politicians running things would, in fact, be to blame.
dust4ngel | 11 hours ago
the typical redditor talks about how dumb redditors are
Polite_Bark | 12 hours ago
My son in law just started the bankruptcy process. He works. He makes decent money. He also has to pay child support to 2 baby mamas and has a spending problem. This will be his 2nd bankruptcy.
Complete_Meeting8719 | 11 hours ago
I'm sorry your child married a bum. Hope they don't have kids.
Polite_Bark | 11 hours ago
They got married and had 2 kids in 2 years. The kids are 1 and newborn.
She's young, though, so I have hope. In my head I think of him as her "starter husband".
Complete_Meeting8719 | 10 hours ago
Oh man. I'm sorry.
No-Case3038 | 14 hours ago
People have massive debts on cars/credit cards, yet have money in their 401k is still soaring and their house price went up 30-60% in 6 years.
What happens if these assets or investments fall 20-40%?
Economy-Ad4934 | 11 hours ago
Pre Great Recession these same types of people who feed their credit card and car loans by multiple heloc s. I wouldn’t be surprised if some mid to high earners are doing this especially if they bought at the right time.
Accidental-Genius | 9 hours ago
I know a guy doing this. His mentality is the ship is going down either way so he might as well have a good time while the whole thing sinks.
No-Case3038 | 9 hours ago
Actually not a bad idea, many of the people doing well right now gambled on crypto/ tech/homes and are still having a great time.
But it may be too late to join the party.
Whaddduptho | 8 hours ago
In which way is the ship going down?
Sounds like an excuse to be a bum. You hangout with bums?
22April22 | 4 hours ago
If someone is willing to finance these upside down loans, WE shouldn’t have to bail out those institutions!😡
Economy-Ad4934 | 3 hours ago
Oh for sure. But that’s what happened during the Great Recession. While some things changed, a lot did not unfortunately.
Legitimate_Page659 | 3 hours ago
Assets won’t drop substantially ever again.
The fed will turn on the money printer, and we’ll end up with significant inflation again.
The fed saw they could trade a market crash for inflation and look at how well it worked. It juiced asset prices, and the working class is left to eat the loss as our wages haven’t caught up, even five years later.
The federal reserve’s new playbook is just treat every market hiccup with the money printer. They’re asset rich, as are their masters. Inflation actually helps them.
Full_Prof | 16 hours ago
There were millions of Americans six months behind on car payments a few years ago. Everything has gotten more expensive and wages have gone nowhere.
The big killer will be heating oil this winter. I am wondering if people will be abandoning homes because they can’t afford to heat them.
shiningdickhalloran | 16 hours ago
Won't happen. It's always possible to get a space heater, heat 1 or 2 rooms, and leave the rest cold. We did this during the oil spikes 20 years ago.
Puzzle-Necked | 16 hours ago
Water pipes going off like the fourth of july
Fluffy-Pop-3407 | 15 hours ago
Leave em running a bit all the time. PoorHacks
juliana-crain | 14 hours ago
Had to do that for a few years till we got our pipes redone. Awful way to live, don't miss it a bit!
shiningdickhalloran | 15 hours ago
Eh that's unlikely outside of a true deep freeze. I'm in Boston and it gets plenty cold. Only cases of that tend to happen farther north when all power is knocked out for days on end and the house become as cold as the outside.
throwawayainteasy | 14 hours ago
Counter-intuitively, burst pipes like that are actually more likely outside of super cold areas.
Houses in the northeast and the like tend to get built with their pipes in naturally insulated locations. Meanwhile, places like Texas or the Gulf South tend to have exposed piping that freeze and burst way easier in cold weather if they're not prepped properly (since it doesn't get legitimately cold as often).
Heck, in those areas (especially on wide open pier and beam foundations where lots of the pipes are functionally just sitting outside totally exposed), sometimes when it gets below freezing for even brief periods, the normal pencil-stream sometimes isn't enough to keep pipes from bursting.
22April22 | 4 hours ago
Or when Canada 🇨🇦 gets feed up with tariffs and cut off New England from 1/3 of their electricity ⚡️
shiningdickhalloran | 4 hours ago
Have you seen electric bills in MA? I doubt it can get much worse.
Suspicious_Place1270 | 12 hours ago
there's usually a setting on the heaters in europe with a snowflake signalling frost protection, but i guess murica does not know about that
Whaddaulookinat | 10 hours ago
A whole lot of Americans gonna understand the meaning of oven heat coming up.
shiningdickhalloran | 10 hours ago
There was a brief period in the 90s when gas ovens actually had a heater feature built in. But it wasn't the oven itself, just a separate heating element with a fan usually on the side. I assume that was deemed a carbon monoxide hazard because I haven't seen it since.
justin107d | 9 hours ago
According to this article, 1 in 5 of low income households currently do this. Not sure what their next steps will be if things get more expensive.
Whaddduptho | 8 hours ago
1 in 5 low income households
So 20% of the lower 20%?
That isn't a lot.
DocFreudstein | 8 hours ago
So that would be 4% of the US population of 349 million. That’s still almost 14 million people who do this.
My furnace went out last winter and I was one of those people until the landlord got it fixed.
BadAtExisting | 16 hours ago
And yet Americans somehow found the “disposable” money to spend $166 billion on sports betting in 2025
It’s the new opioid crisis in the making and this has consequence of tanking the economy for all
Edit: I also have to wonder how many billions of “disposable” money Americans spend on stupid unnecessary “treat yo self” couple uses before it sits forever bullshit on Amazon with the amount of trucks and delivery vehicles I see on the roads
JustLurkCarryOn | 15 hours ago
I’ve been an alcoholic and made some dumb financial decisions in the past, but I am very happy that gambling has always been a once-every-few-years-on-a-predefined-budget ordeal and never got into the apps. Sounds like a genius business model that simply vacuums money out of the working class.
juliana-crain | 14 hours ago
When my youngest went back to in-person high school after covid zoom school, she talked about how a large group of boys in her classes - colege-track classes like precalculus - constantly talked about how much they were betting on sports betting apps. I worry about those kids and wonder how they are doing. What's dumb and fun when you're 17 and living with your parents is much worse when you're 20 and paying for college and rent...
BadAtExisting | 14 hours ago
Yeah. I’m not great with money but I leave gambling for cruises and Vegas. That shit won’t enter my home
Omarkhayyamsnotes | 14 hours ago
It's like a industrial vacuum in a pit of sawdust. Holy Jesus Christ they are filling the vacuum. The app has flashing lights and is addictive. It's so easy to link your debit card. Your paycheck was only $300 last week. What have you, as the lower class, got to lose? Go ahead and bet on Kalshi!
Omarkhayyamsnotes | 14 hours ago
Imagine the lower class. Most of them will never earn over 50k a day in their lives. You cant imagine how seductive the idea of earning ten thousand dollars is. You cant imagine how much that means to someone at the very bottom scraping the sand. They flock to Kalshi like moths to a incandescent bulb
Suspicious_Place1270 | 12 hours ago
it's only genius because it's super unregulated
Zyphamon | 5 hours ago
dude, I had a former coworker as of a couple months ago. Guy was homeless a month after he came back from initial training, where he was given a per diem, rental car, hotel suite, and base pay. His mom's place got condemned or sold and his mom moved in with his cousin who he hates so he lived out of his car. no bank account, shit credit. He couldn't get a place to live for over a month because no place would rent to him. He got to travel for work, thankfully for his sake, and built up a bit of money accordingly because he wasn't hand to mouth as his housing, food, and gas were all paid for. He got deep into daily sports betting. To the point where he was gambling paychecks at a time on games in progress. "The Astros are up on The Rangers by 3 in the 8th! It's guaranteed money" for his 3% return. He kept betting it all, and kept losing every so often. It culminated with him betting 400 hours of his gross pay on Argentina in the World Cup Finals. This was while he was already being heavily disciplined at work, constantly caused problems, was bottom of the charts, etc. He ended up quitting a few weeks later in a ridiculous fashion including threats to the company, supervisors, and people around him. Gambling can ruin people, but it can take already damaged people and drive them deep into the ground.
flbnah | 11 hours ago
Zach?.. Zach..
Zach Cregger!
Yeah?
Trevor!
Trevorrrr-
Trevor Moore!
Yeah yeah yeah!
Hey!
How ya doin'?
Good! I haven't seen you in like... seven- Eight. Eight years since since senior year at Brown!
Right.
It's good to see you, look at you, you look great!
Thanks!
What do ya got there?
Uh this is a gallon of PCP. ...
Wow!... A... a gallon.
Yeah.
Th-That's that's illegal, right?..
Yeah it's a felony!
It's a felony!...
Yes.
Wow!...
And here you are with it anyway...
That is... Wow.
I uh, I didn't even knew it came in liquid form!
Science.
Woah. So uuhhhhhh... Ahhh..
Do ya do a LOT of PCP?...
Got a gallon!
Yeah! Hah I guess-- I guess you do.
Wow! So. What do you do?
I work in an investment firm downtown. It's mostly, like, propert acquisitions.
Huh!... That sounds... Successful...
What do you do?
Uhm I work at the Binco's.
I don't know what Binco's is...
It's a- It's an office supply store. Type thing...
Secretary stuff?
Eh..-- But a gallon?
Yeah!
Here you are with a gallon. Wow. Ummm... Man. Do you still see Candice?
No. Ahh she passed away.
OOOH o-oh I'm sorry. I didn't know. How long ago.. did that happen?
Uhhh. About four.
About four years ago?
No. PM.
Four!.. PM!...As in today!...
4PM...
That- it's five o' clock now.
Yeah.
So... That was recent. Wh-whaaat happened?...
I... Was at my dealer's house.
Uh huh.
I was buyin' the PCP.
Of course.
And. Uhh. I didn't have enough money for ALL of the gallon.
Ooohh, it's expensive.
But I WANTED the whole gallon.
Of course.
So I set up a deal, where I would leave her as collateral.
Uh ooohh!
And I would go hit an ATM and come right back.
I see problems.
But uh, y'know, when I left I got..distracted. Aaand he..Cut her head off.
WOAH!...Wow!...
glazor | 6 hours ago
WKUK.
Pitiful_Option_108 | 14 hours ago
This is why I hate "prediction markets" the act they are legal is stupid but I know why. I genuinely can't wait for when they get regulated.
BadAtExisting | 6 hours ago
I personally lump that shit in with the sports betting apps - it’s all gambling I don’t care what legaleze they use to tiptoe around regulation. But you’re right. For the sake of this discussion, I should’ve mentioned them separately because Polymarket and Kalshi are equally addictive problems that are categorized slightly differently
Zyphamon | 5 hours ago
this is why I keep my gambling in either season long fantasy football leagues where it's an investment in shit talking folks, or as a percentage of my funsies brokerage account (which is about 15% of my regular investment brokerage account, separate from 401k and IRA) making plays on mostly straight stock but options on occasion as a lower percentage (always covered). It's nice when you do something like a 10x return on a year of holding MRNA, dip out, then come back 3 years later and 5x return 2 years later.
I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice, this is for entertainment purposes and me bragging of plays i've made. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. I owned 5000 shares in NVDA back in 2008 and mined bitcoin for a wallet stored on a harddrive I lost back in 2012 so fuck me right? Gambling be gambling, and investment also is those rolls of the dice, only with slightly less degeneracy when you play it straight.
Lysmerry | 14 hours ago
We’re also grooming children into gambling with loot boxes and gacha games, very sick stuff
BadAtExisting | 14 hours ago
It’s not that. The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket are Gen Z Draft Kings CEO is 46. Fan Duel CEO is 52. All these people recognized their peers and thus target audience is addicted to the instant gratification of social media, video games and fantasy sports. It’s a predatory evolution of gaming and esports
AGreasyPorkSandwich | 12 hours ago
And our president is profiting off of it, so don't expect the government to help
Lysmerry | 11 hours ago
Grooming is using a child’s vulnerability and naïveté to get them to accept something that is bad for them but good for you. Adults can and do fall into the habit but they typically have more restraint, and at least know what they are doing. Children often don’t realize they are spending real money. Gambling is an addiction, and an addiction started young will be harder to break.
Zyphamon | 5 hours ago
if you think adults know what they're doing, you haven't experienced enough life yet. We are fumbling through life, but we have more consequences than we did as children. Similar struggles, more experience, and more responsibility. Adults still fall prey to their own naïveté like "They told me the loved me!" and "It's a surefire investment!" and "A timeshare sounds like a great idea!" A sucker is born every second.
schtickybunz | 11 hours ago
You don't enjoy opening gifts? "Grooming" is overly used, especially as these short lived trends are youth driven. Only takes getting burned to learn. I mean, grown ass people bought NFTs for buckets of money. 🤑 Is playing poker with pretzels or candy "grooming"? Life is a game of risk, you gotta learn how to navigate that by practicing.
bobandgeorge | 11 hours ago
I would wager that for a not insignificant portion of these people, this money isn't really disposable. They see gambling and hitting it big as the only way out of the economic hellscape they're in.
the_ai_wizard | 11 hours ago
this is not luxury but desperation
Spaduf | 14 hours ago
Those are not the same Americans. The top 10% does all the spending.
BadAtExisting | 14 hours ago
That’s interesting
Spaduf | 14 hours ago
Thanks SweepsPulse.Com and Globe NewsWire for this hard hitting research
BadAtExisting | 14 hours ago
It’s no paywall. You can go find it yourself. Go watch people play lottery. They aren’t the top 10% of earners
tapwater86 | 14 hours ago
These are likely people placing $5-$20 dollar bets at a time with high stakes that pay out many times their money, but hardly ever pay off. People trying to get ahead by sacrificing a few bucks here and there. Look how many poor people play the lottery. It’s the same gatcha.
BadAtExisting | 14 hours ago
Probably but unlike the lottery where it’s a few days out of the week or once a day, the apps it’s $5-$20 multiple times per game, multiple times per day
And yes, lottery keeps plenty of people broke af
enoerew | 13 hours ago
More than just sports betting with those bullshit bet on anything sites like Kalshi. The free market has all the solutions to all the problems it creates! Trust the invisible hand! /s
eukomos | 14 hours ago
Uh, or set the heater to 55 and wear their coats inside? Which is plenty bad and a sign of poverty, no need to jump to abandoning the house.
Icy-Lobster-203 | 9 hours ago
Also...abandon your house and go freeze to death outside? What would that even accomplish?
ThePainStalker | 16 hours ago
The big worry is all those AI data centers using “off-grid” sites and using transmission gas pipelines instead of electrical grid connections. I actually think that contrary to what the developers say, this will place an even bigger burden on ratepayers and homeowners because who else uses the natural gas for heating and electricity but the utilities and the homeowners? And the sheer amount of natural gas many of them have acquired simply to service energy intensive 4GW+ AI campuses using extremely inefficient single cycle turbines (since they can’t get combined cycle anymore due to the shortages) that are basically only 25-35% efficient is just insane. I firmly believe America will have a natural gas shortage soon enough and a lot of the public are totally blind to it. It’s utterly insane how these facilities get approved especially under the falsehood of them eliminating the burden on ratepayers cause “they aren’t connected to an electrical grid”. They are always “connected to a grid” believe me, it’s just either the gas grid or the electrical grid, either way, regular people get screwed.
korinth86 | 15 hours ago
Shortage only because of exports and high prices in Europe thanks to Hormuz closure.
The US has plenty of gas but export prices are sky high and producers have no incentive to provide to citizens over their own pockets.
Its why Biden put a cap on exports for a bit to help protect poorer americans.
ThePainStalker | 14 hours ago
No, it’s not just gas supply. Pipeline capacity matters enormously. The AI campuses consume so much energy (an unprecedented amount of energy) that they alone would cause major gas pipeline congestion (sometimes even using almost the entirely of a single transmission pipeline capacity) in most of the sites proposed. And it is extremely difficult and time consuming to build new interstate gas transmission pipelines and to build all the new compressor stations needed for it and guess what, all of those costs also get billed directly to the people and utilities using the natural gas through those pipelines. There may be some exceptions where an AI campus might be built near a massive oversupply of gas like the Permian basin but that’s a tiny minority of the proposed sites and even they will have cascading effects during the winter when utilities would have to pay more for the “cheap gas” when they used to pay next to nothing, hence inflating consumer bills. Keep in mind that many if not most utilities function on a marginal price mechanism where the most expensive electricity generation source (usually natural gas especially in winter) sets the total electricity price billed to consumers. So even if the natural gas isn’t “used”, it still is often passed on to consumers anyway.
Either way, it is an enormous bubble and the developers know it isn’t remotely sustainable cost and reliability wise, they just plan to socialise the cost to the taxpayers when shit hits the fan in a year or two when the bubble bursts. It will make the Dotcom bubble look downright tame.
NeonCatheter | 6 hours ago
So calls on gas?
ThePainStalker | 6 hours ago
Well none of them have really been built yet (aside from the Louisiana one). I highly doubt most will or at least of the ones that do get built, they would suffer from some “unforeseen” reliability and stability failures within about 2 years (which were obvious from the start, as most of those setups are not resilient whatsoever from a power system perspective).
xeoron | 15 hours ago
And corruption has sored
StandupJetskier | 15 hours ago
This is the chilly elephant in the room. Stocks are low-demand remains high-and I'm starting my season full....it's going to be ugly here in the Northeast
Diesel fuel is just taxed Fuel Oil #2......
Whaddduptho | 9 hours ago
> There were millions of Americans six months behind on car payments a few years ago
So what? We have 270 million adults so "millions" doesn't tell us anything.
According to fitch ratings the auto loan delinquency rate is lower than last year.
ledow | 14 hours ago
Guess what prolonged cold weather without adequate heating and shelter does, too? It makes you more likely to require medical assistance. Guess what Americans who can't afford heat also can't afford? Guess what malnourishment (including not just "less food" but also "bad food"), overwork, stress, poverty, etc. all contribute to? Yep. More medical expenses.
The US didn't use to have requirements for medical insurance, it's a relatively recent thing: "Hospital and medical expense policies were introduced during the first half of the 20th century."
There's a point at which this collapses in on itself and you need a decent government to put in safeguards to stop that happening, and support programmes to help those in need. Guess what the US doesn't have?
Two more winters, minimum. Let's hope you don't get anything like, oh, I don't know, unusual extreme weather caused by global climate change...
artisanrox | 13 hours ago
Talking a few times with the oil company for my home heat, they're trying to scramble past the competition to get very scarce supplies in for pre-buy plans. They already ran out of plans in a week the first time around.
This is going to get ugly.
Whaddduptho | 8 hours ago
I don't even know what heating oil is.
I do know that winters are not as bad as they used to be.
Natural gas is used in most instances....and it's cheap.
DistortedVoid | 8 hours ago
I think its going to be a fairly warm winter this year
Full_Prof | 8 hours ago
Many buy it by the tank. When people run out they will not be able to refill.
Reagalan | 4 hours ago
> abandoning homes
They'll do what I already do. One room is the warm room (it's the one with the computer in it). The rest of the house is left to whatever.
MincedBrat | 40 minutes ago
To go where? Outside?
Danne660 | 7 hours ago
Wages have definitely not gone nowhere.
CrackingToastGromet | 13 hours ago
I lost my business at the end of 2025 and am filing personal bankruptcy now because I had to personally guarantee all of the equipment loans taken out for my business (even though I was an LLC). Rising expenses (tariffs on raw materials, utilities, rent, insurance went through the roof) and clients cutting back their spends due to their own financial squeeze was the end of us. It’s amazing how quickly everything unraveled.
MaximumAd9779 | 12 hours ago
You will get through this and there will be better times.
0341usmc | 9 hours ago
It’s way cooler to try to do a hard thing and fail, than to want to do a hard thing and never try.
You’re a success in my book.
CyberSmith31337 | 16 hours ago
If there was ever a place to examine the disconnect between lived experiences, look no further than Reddit.
About 1/3 of the users here are making more money than ever before (mostly programmers, finance, and software engineers) and absolutely cannot accept or believe that the economy is in terrible shape. This group hides behind reports and statistics because they are so far removed from reality that they literally can’t imagine how bad it is for the rest of the world. These are your homeowners, your 6-figure earners, your stock market participants, etc.
I’d say about 1/2 of the users are feeling it in every aspect of their lives. Every single facet of life has outpaced their wage growth; rent, groceries, basic computer hardware, access to amenities, etc. These people are middle class, but are slowly slipping into lower-middle class, are conscious of the slide, and powerless to do anything about it. These are your full-time employees making between $45-78k~ a year, renters, people who have jobs for the health insurance, likely make some small form of contribution to a 401k, have student loans/a car payment/some degree of semi-manageable debt.
The remaining 1/5 are those who are already underwater/drowning. They were already barely getting by, and are now leveraged into the red. These are you people working for sub-$45k~ a year, sometimes working 2 jobs, only to still be behind their payments. They are priced out of life. This demographic is moving towards bankruptcy and poverty, if they aren’t already there. This includes your minimum wage workers, retirees, disabled, low-opportunity area renters, government employees, elderly, and new graduates with substantial student loan debt burdens. This is who cannot understand how people are optimistic about the economy because they are financially trapped and see no way out of the hole.
fluffy_hamsterr | 16 hours ago
> If there was ever a place to examine the disconnect between lived experiences, look no further than Reddit.
The ratios you provided seem to just reflect the general household income distribution in the US.
The bottom 20% is sub $30k-ish so yeah that's poverty.
The middle "1/2 of users" (20%-80%) is like $30k to $175k. Even on the top end of that, especially if you add kids, you'd be feeling the price increases.
And then above $175k it obviously gets easier.
Suspicious_Place1270 | 11 hours ago
and yeah, it's just the usa, reddit has far more users than just the usa
MisterMittens64 | 16 hours ago
Unless you're making AI, things suck right now for programmers.
Available_Finger_513 | 16 hours ago
Sucks for junior level programmers. They need senior devs to fix the slop that AI pumps out.
Toribor | 15 hours ago
Ops roles have never been busier and more in demand because the pace of system changes is accelerating to ludicrous speed.
PressWearsARedDress | 11 hours ago
I feel this. I have client using basic prompts on free AI tools and generating really terrible tech specifications.
I come in, tell him he can get his whole infrastructure hack (he had infrastructure with the assumption you cannot get a Public RSA key out of a message that was encrypted with that RSA key.... Now with one message this is true, if an observer sees two messages that it knows the plain text of thats a 10 second crack). Yes he assumed the public key was private. Go to a Free AI tool, I know exactly what he did; He asked if you can get a the Public RSA Key out of a message encrypted with the Public Key... the AI Tool correctly said No. But this guy did not ask... what if this message was of foreign origin and my device blindly encrypts it with the Public Key and sends it back?
I am not even programming any more. I am sending very techical emails and creating highly technical documentation. Much more than before... before we barely even documented much of anything because when you had to program this programming took all of the time... so with AI now there is time to document so all of the time saved on programming went into documenting and dunking on the client for being a moron.
the_ai_wizard | 15 hours ago
bingo
bigbadbreezy | 12 hours ago
Which actually still sucks for senior devs too.
Cool-Truth211 | 15 hours ago
You couldn’t be more wrong
ia332 | 14 hours ago
Nah, it’s more if you sucked or were mediocre at programming you’re likely to lose your job. It’s just exposing people who could barely code themselves out of a paper bag being shown the door.
It’s just before AI they needed someone, anyone, but that don’t cut it anymore.
Finnegan482 | 14 hours ago
This is completely wrong. Things absolutely suck even for top-tier developers.
bigbadbreezy | 15 hours ago
Do you know anyone who works in software development? AI has created a complete hellscape in tech.
CyberSmith31337 | 15 hours ago
I mean, I work in tech.
I don’t have any sympathies for this field. Everyone here makes substantially more money than they are worth. The oligarchs are just squeezing white collar this time around.
bigbadbreezy | 14 hours ago
I guess it depends on where you work in the industry. This was definitely not my experience, but I work outside a major city.
ShartKing78 | 12 hours ago
Good
bigbadbreezy | 12 hours ago
Why? Believe it or not, not everyone working in software dev makes 6 figures. A lot of us are normal people living in normal places trying to make a living like everyone else.
Maxpowr9 | 15 hours ago
The duality of working in banking. I make good money while I see others struggle and taking out personal loans to survive. Some of it is just them falling on hard times. For others, it's likely some of wanton vice [shopping, gambling, drugs].
Lysmerry | 14 hours ago
I’m jealous of people with addictions because I’m straight up disabled, no hope of working in the future. I wish I could at least enjoy my race to the bottom
Maxpowr9 | 14 hours ago
Gen Z men's addiction to sports betting is gonna put most of them in the poor house. One of the main ways to fight said addiction is to simply not watch sports which is essentially impossible for them.
Lysmerry | 14 hours ago
Are you saying that if you have a history of problematic sports betting, even watching sports becomes difficult? Like that’s a major male bonding behavior in many circles, I can see why that would be super hard to give up. Like men are lonely enough, and that would tank their social life.
Maxpowr9 | 13 hours ago
It's like alcoholism in that regard. Can you go to a bar, hangout with friends while they get drunk and you stay sober? Few people have that much self-control.
hedgehogssss | 15 hours ago
you meant - mental health issues that they can't afford to get the help they need for
Omarkhayyamsnotes | 14 hours ago
The hiding behind stats thing really hits me. I see the stock market hit an ATH the same day I am facing eviction, homelessness, and complete disaster. And I am not alone.
TheVenetianMask | 14 hours ago
The programmers at my place are part time now because our major clients are chucking money into AI and making-do with the slop, and nobody seems to be holding them accountable for the quality issues.
Economy-Ad4934 | 11 hours ago
I’m part of that 1/3 but I’m not that dense to not see what’s going on around us. I post my info regularly but I also understand I’m closer to living on the street than being a billionaire.
Pretend_Hotel_7465 | 3 hours ago
I am in finance/law making more money than I have ever made before and I absolutely accept, believe, and have been living my life knowing we’d be heading for a depression level reset with trump 2.0. The metrics used to measure economic health are antiquated; the statistics are disconnected from the reality of most people.
Strange-Advice-5417 | 15 hours ago
As a person in the upper tier, highly leveraging software and AI, I've never been more efficient or well compensated. I'm at the top of my game.
But I understand I am lucky and most Americans aren't. :(
kh3mist | 15 hours ago
Same here. I’m basically 20 years in to my career in fintech and finding AI helping in so many ways. My wife is going back to work part time after leaving the work force for having kids. She doesn’t have to. We realize the bubble we’re live in is real.
Though, I can’t wait to get out of this field. I want something much more low key eventually.
Strange-Advice-5417 | 14 hours ago
It's like trading stress for money.
Acceptable-Poetry737 | 10 hours ago
I’ve met plenty of those poorer people and seen their houses.
they’ve been blowing money on crap, vapes, Magic cards, drugs, alcohol, and all sorts of degenerate stuff that they have plenty of power and control over but their egos are constantly in the way of accepting personal responsibility for their lives.
making above $45k is plenty a year, if you’re not looking for fancy solo apartment in a fancy city, with coffee out every day, a new car, and eating stupidly.
and for sure, don’t have kids if you won’t be responsible enough for them.
Spunge14 | 15 hours ago
10/30 + 15/30 + 6/30 = 31/30
CyberSmith31337 | 15 hours ago
Except I said “about 1/2”; not exactly 1/2.
Spunge14 | 15 hours ago
Why bother to be so specific but vague?
CyberSmith31337 | 8 hours ago
You came here to be snarky, and now you’re mad you misread the post. Like Jesus go touch some grass.
Spunge14 | 8 hours ago
I just thought it was weird to go out of the way to use fractions but not have them add up.
Polkmnzx | 14 hours ago
A big problem I think also is that people just spend too much and want too much. Sure there are many people who are having a hard time making ends meet but many of those people somehow have a 5-10k gaming pc. Then you have the so called middle to middle and upper class. They make decent money but they grow into the money and buy nice things instead of saving. They take out a 30 year mortgage that they can barely afford. They do the same thing with their cars and this spreads into other aspects of their lives.
In the end, yes, part of the affordability crisis is indeed that things are just more expensive than before. The other part of it is just that people cannot control themselves. Then when they lose their job or something unexpected happens everything comes tumbling down and they blame the economy, inflation, anything else but themselves.
I make a good salary right now. Emphasis on right now. Who knows when I will not. I save and budget so that when shit hits the fan I will be able to hopefully survive. I could have taken out a mortgage for a multimillion dollar home. I bought a modest home I can pay off quickly. I did the same with my car before the home. Paid it off in a few months. No mommy and daddy don’t have money. They are broke so yes I had to take out loans. When I buy groceries I buy great value and the like. I always look for discounts or offers whenever I buy things. I frequently buy things used off eBay to save money. Obviously we are not all in the same position but this is the mindset people should be having. Not always focused on buying buying buying.
A change in mindset with self control and discipline can go a long way. No one wants to do that though. So many people are brainwashed into buying everything they see and think they can somehow fund it all with get rich quick schemes and ideas they see on social media. I don’t blame them though. That is what they see, learn, and end up wanting and believing. Sad state of affairs.
flyingpacifier | 13 hours ago
You’re talking about some things that like 30% of people can’t even consider. Paying off cars in a couple of months and bragging about personal responsibility, budgeting, and buying great value? A huge chunk of us have been doing that for our entire lives and it’s never gotten better and it’s only gotten worse. There are definitely a significant chunk of people that are doing all of these things that you’re describing and need to be minimized. However, what you’re describing is such a slap in the face to us that have chosen to work in life saving fields while making shit wages, or some just havent had the same opportunities to make a better living or have had worse luck.
People can hardly budget their way out of poverty making 45k a year, particularly if they are underwater on any debts or have anything go wrong. Just like America can’t refinance its way out of 40 trillion in debt. You’re worried about personal responsibility, but only acknowledging that portion of it is being willfully blind as fuck.
Edit: sorry in advance for my tone. Ended up being colored with more resentment and anger than I intended and less objective. Still, putting the onus on individual responsibility and spending when a huge swath of people are one bad day away from being homeless is, in my opinion, an incredibly ignorant and privileged take.
orange-yellow-pink | 12 hours ago
I’m not the guy you responded to but what’s inaccurate about this stat: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
This shows that real median wages have been rising since 2022. What am I missing here when folks say wages aren’t keeping up with inflation? I’m asking earnestly, I’d genuinely like to improve my understanding
edit: I don’t care about the downvotes but maybe at least one person could explain what I’m missing? This is the economics sub, after all
MossyMollusc | an hour ago
A better look for national economic health is how many workers, percentage wise are making the lowest sums right now? How much of the economy is actually owned by the largest workforce here? It paints the actual picture of jobs disappearing, education and upward mobility being changed to a caste system, and basic essentials putting people into debt after working a full 40 hour week.
The median wage disguises the lowest earners, which is why republicans use it so often.
flyingpacifier | 7 hours ago
I don’t think that you should be downvoted and upvoted you for the record.
The real median wages argument is one of the (in my opinion several) things that are keeping us generally above water as economically and societally speaking. I think this discussion is the crux of the issue and thank you for bringing up the Fred data.
I’m not an economist and work in more human research that considers a lot of sociological factors. This is something I’ve been trying to understand and untangle more myself. I don’t have an answer—and if there were a singular answer—I don’t think we’d be in this position in the first place, but there are a lot of interesting things I’ve seen posited. Personally and professionally, I observe a lot of people underwater that are struggling in the day to day sense working jobs integral to our society’s function hampered by circumstances largely outside of their control. Some of which, I do think the Baumol effect could be playing a role. The United States largely being a service economy at this point has a significant number of essential service based jobs that are dead end and becoming increasingly less appealing and more competitive. Meanwhile the government is chipping away at x y or z which I don’t care to get into for the sake of this conversation.
I don’t have the nomenclature or numbers on hand, but I’d venture to guess on my non expert opinion that the middle class is diverging and many of the higher earners within are making up for the losses down the line in more profitable industries such as real estate, insurance, etc.
For a good chunk of those folks, those with out a higher leg up also are more vulnerable to medical, credit, car, housing, college debts and can get under water without a second thought. It’s okay cause we’ll bail the banks out anyway. If that’s something you really want to talk about, let’s talk about financial education, literacy, and policy. Let’s talk about our literacy and math stats in general lol. If we want to talk about personal responsibility, we can start there.
All of this is happening while you can manage a semi livable life, but for the folks who aren’t in the middle class or are on the lower end and on the outs? Life is tough and hard and day to day. People die from heart attacks because they can’t afford going to the doctor and some that do go to the doctor are saddled with incredible debt. For these people, our system is borderline unlivable. If you want to tell them to strap up and about personal responsibility, I’m sure they’d love to swap shoes. To be clear, that’s not angled at you, but the poster above. I appreciate your contribution.
To circle back, numbers by themselves mean very little to me. Something to note, but to me that’s where the science starts. As an example from my field in neuroscience, if you did wanted to find out what was happening in the brain while doing 2+2 using something like EEG, MEG, fMRI, or others imagine methods, you would likely see a lot of activation in the occipital and motor cortexes. However that isn’t what is happening when trying to untangle what 2+2 is, what’s happening is they are receiving visual information and moving. Same thing with the fed rate. Not a perfect analogy of course, but that Fred data doesn’t mean much to me without considering the underlying data and phenomenon. Without acknowledging any of those things, the numbers are meaningless. And if someone try’s to tell you otherwise, they don’t know what they don’t know in my opinion.
Edit: also before u economist with a d or any other people come for me about the K shaped economy, I’m happy to discuss the nitty gritty and nuance of those numbers.
Last edit: apologies for the sloppy typos, mistakes, and more. Too many and I went on too long to fix and now I have to live my real life haha. Feel free to comment if something isn’t clear because I know there were a lot of mistakes and/or assumptions made.
orange-yellow-pink | 6 hours ago
Thanks for the reply. I definitely agree that a lot of people are financially struggling even when the broader wage data looks decent, especially if they’re carrying debt, can't amass savings or are hit with medical bills.
I’m still a little confused by a couple parts though. Higher earners can pull up an average but not really a median. If the real median is rising, earnings around the 50th percentile are actually rising after inflation. And I’m curious what you mean about the Baumol effect here. My (limited) understanding is that part of that mechanism is wages rising even in sectors without corresponding productivity growth so I’m not sure how it explains what we’re talking about.
MaximumAd9779 | 12 hours ago
I get where you’re coming from. Hyper-consumerism and living perpetually beyond your means is foolish. But life is hard, and getting harder. Let people buy what brings them happiness as long it’s not bankrupting them. A frugal jerk isn’t better than an over-spender.
LowRevolution5930 | 16 hours ago
Source: "trust me bro"
CyberSmith31337 | 15 hours ago
What a worthless post, and poster.
Tall-Control8992 | 15 hours ago
Yes, up until a year or ago, some folks were too comfortable being part of the problem. One of the more positive outcomes I see from AI is making the pain of a cultural and economic reset less than the pain of continuing to be part of the problem.
Beautiful_Finger4566 | 15 hours ago
it was worse four years ago and reddit was denying it
even redefining the definition of the word "recession"
CyberSmith31337 | 15 hours ago
A lot of Reddit are software engineers.
Software engineers are the most self-absorbed people you will ever meet in your life. There’s a reason so many people loathe anyone from the Bay Area; they’re petulant narcissists through and through.
Lysmerry | 14 hours ago
I find there is a huge variety. Some are just regular people, some are smug assholes but ultimately normal, some are straight up sociopathic, openly fantasizing about destroying democracy and crushing the poor. There used to be social consequences for the third type, but people have become desensitized.
OddlyFactual1512 | 7 hours ago
31/30 of people are accounted for.
bakedNebraska | 13 hours ago
From the article
> I talk more about this in my 2025 book “The Power of Cash.”
I'd say this presents a bit of bias, and conflict of interest. This is more of a sales pitch than it is reporting.
Youre_Rat_Fucking_Me | 15 hours ago
This article feels very disingenuous. It compares 2025 bankruptcies against 2022 which was the lowest number of bankruptcies in the country in decades and was likely heavily influenced by Covid related policies/stimulus - that is not an appropriate baseline.
Bankruptcies fillings are growing, but they’re significantly down relative to the 2010s where bankruptcy filings never got below ~750k.
Unkechaug | 14 hours ago
Complain about cherry picking, then cite the 2010s where bankruptcies from Great Recession fallout increased those numbers? Talk about disingenuous.
Youre_Rat_Fucking_Me | 12 hours ago
As mentioned, 2022 was the lowest number of bankruptcies in decades. To be more specific, it was the lowest since the 1980s when the US had ~100m fewer people. You could not have picked a bigger outlier than 2022.
Also, I exclusively listed the year with the lowest number of bankruptcies during the 2010s which was 2019 at ~750k. I don’t think the Great Recession can be assigned as a significant contributor to bankruptcies in at least the latter third of that decade. But fine, if that’s not sufficient for you. How about this: The number of non business bankruptcies in 2025 that this article sensationalizes was lower than every single year in the 2010s, 2000s, and 90s (again, despite the population growing by nearly 100m).
RedNBlueFU | 13 hours ago
So in other words we are heading into a recession if not already in one?
Youre_Rat_Fucking_Me | 12 hours ago
No - at least not based on this data. The number of non business bankruptcies in 2025 that this article sensationalizes was lower than every single year in the 2010s, 2000s, and 90s (despite the population growing by nearly 100m over that time).
YamborginiLow | 16 hours ago
Americans have so much money now they can’t comprehend it and don’t know what to do with it so they are filing for bankruptcy now instead of paying their bills.
Decent-truth1712 | 16 hours ago
Careful with comments like that. Trump supporters are stupid enough to believe you.
filmguy36 | 16 hours ago
Unless you add a /s, you are delusional.
[OP] Potential_Being_7226 | 16 hours ago
That sounds… overly simplistic.
hybridaaroncarroll | 16 hours ago
I believe they're being sarcastic, but if not then they are completely out of touch with everyday Americans.
[OP] Potential_Being_7226 | 16 hours ago
I can read the sarcasm now, thanks. Although, you really never know on here. I read so many unhinged, rage-bait, polarized takes that I take words at face value, unless otherwise indicated.
HedonisticFrog | 16 hours ago
Yeah, when some people are this extreme it's difficult to tell what is satire or not.
filmguy36 | 16 hours ago
Are they? Their comments are hidden
YamborginiLow | 16 hours ago
I am being sarcastic by the way.
This is just what a lot of people on this subreddit sound like.
[OP] Potential_Being_7226 | 15 hours ago
I realized that after another kind redditor gave me a heads up. :)
sfled | 5 hours ago
They will acquire even more wealth when they abandon their homes and default on their mortgages. Moving into transient shantytowns built from materials at hand, these ruggedly patriotic individualists will name their new communities "Trumpervilles" to honor the man who made it all possible.
mcsul | 11 hours ago
Guys, this is another one of those shock articles that presents an incomplete picture of the data to generate outrage.
They use 2022 as the benchmark, but that was basically the lowest number of personal bankruptcies in my lifetime. If we want to cherry pick stats like this author did, we could alternatively say that personal bankruptcies have fallen by 75% since 2005! Or we could say that personal bankruptcies are only one third the numbers of the late 1990s!
Economics articles from places like Salon, Newsworld, etc... are all just designed to make us angry. And they are probably misrepresenting the actual data (possibly by accident, given that they aren't exactly the most economically or business savvy publications).
MainBottle3170 | 10 hours ago
The wealthy have been moving Jenga blocks since the 1990s, like growth that would even make cancer blush. 2008 was a small wobble. Eventually, who knows when, there will be no more blocks to move. I don’t know about the rest of you but Klarna for fast food does not inspire hope. Without a steady foundation of blocks at the bottom you can only grow into a collapse.
ItsAnIslandBabe | 10 hours ago
Love this analogy
thewimsey | 8 hours ago
>Eventually, who knows when, there will be no more blocks to move.
What does this mean in terms of economics?
>I don’t know about the rest of you but Klarna for fast food does not inspire hope.
Most people are smart enough not to mindlessly follow clickbait articles. I bet you would have gotten your panties in a bunch when grocery stores started accepting credit cards as well.
>Without a steady foundation of blocks at the bottom you can only grow into a collapse.
Again, what does this mean in economic terms? There needs to be a bunch of poor people at the bottom?
MainBottle3170 | 8 hours ago
You seem to be struggling with analogies. Credit cards, which exploded under “Reganomics” That was one of the first blocks. The loss of manufacturing jobs felt less so because people could now use credit. Then came, glass steagall ,40 year amortization of mortgages, CDS etc… It’s all about expanding the consumer base while removing resources to make it seem like natural growth in place of sustainable growth. You are probably too young and are just used to things being shitty to really understand.
You only have to look at China’s middle class growth as an inversion to North American’s middle class decline. Every brand and company that really represented the middle class in North America has been replaced by dollar stores and Amazon dupes.
In terms of economics you need a critical mass of consumers to purchase goods for the market to work. If we keep removing those things that support the critical mass (good paying jobs),and the market continues to squeeze consumers even more (Fees on top of fees, endless subscriptions) no one will be able to afford anything and companies will continue to die off. Like the bread has gone stale and the circus has left town if you know what I mean.
thewimsey | 8 hours ago
What a dishonest article.
The obvious vagueness in it should have set off people's bullshit detectors. But there are too many people on reddit, and in this sub, who credulously believe anything on the internet that confirms their own vibes.
Note that using raw numbers instead of rates or per capita or some other measure is often a way that people are trying to bullshit you, so you need to adjust your bullshit detectors accordingly.
Here are nonbusiness bankruptcy rates per 1000 people
2010: 6.5 bankruptcies
2015: 3.4
2019: 3.0
2022: 1.4
2025: 2.0
So filings are up since their historical low, but historically filings are still really really low.
And, again, it's telling that the article itself didn't provide any of this useful context.
MainBottle3170 | 7 hours ago
Looks like you are dismissing the reversing trend based on the small numbers. It’s signaling the K economy. The previous decline in bankruptcies appeared to coincide with the rising stock market. Well that market is still rising and now too are bankruptcies. There’s been a decoupling. And I bet if you are not feeling it now, you will be in the not so distant future.
moshennik | 6 hours ago
this is right.. Covid has stalled BK filings.. this is the reversion to the mean
Osiris_Raphious | 14 hours ago
Maybe something worth considering 🤷♂️ do it like the rich used to do it. Get a massive loan, study live like a king, get a few degrees, declare bankruptcy, they can't repo your knowledge.
The you are clear to start your life again after a break essentially with no debt. (it's been patched I'm sure, but that's literally one way they made it work)
UsefulApplication103 | 8 hours ago
Not saying that the rise is good, but for context, the all time high was in 2010 was almost 1.6 million, more than double 2026's current filings. Also note that current filings are still lower than pre COVID https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/reports/statistical-reports/bankruptcy-filing-statistics/bankruptcy-statistics-data-visualizations
MapPrestigious3007 | 13 hours ago
I’m heading into retirement in two months with no debt at all
I know people that spent every penny they had and freaking out about retirement now
I’m glad I lived with in a budget
MossyMollusc | an hour ago
Youre so brave