To be honest, the lives of rich Americans are generally not too luxurious. Americans’ consumption concept is mainly “pragmatic”. For Americans, sufficiency is the first priority for consumer goods, and quality is the most important. As for where they buy them or what brand they are, most Americans don't care. This concept of consumption also applies to the wealthy class. Rich Americans believe in "buying the best for necessities and not being stingy with money; buying the least for non-necessities and not wasting money." This ensures that the living standards of the rich are not much different from ordinary people, and living expenses only account for a small amount of income. part of.

However, the wealthy people in the United States did not hesitate to mortgage their personal assets to borrow money because they saw business opportunities and thought they were profitable. Currently, interest rates in the United States are quite low. Recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan stated at a semiannual congressional hearing that after adjustments, the current federal benchmark interest rate of 2.5 is roughly "quite low." This means that Americans can get large loans for little interest. Rich people will naturally not give up this opportunity to make money. Americans’ consumption concept is like this: earn one yuan and spend two or even ten yuan.

Americans never like to count money, nor do they like to save. Their pensions are usually deducted from their wages, and medical insurance is deducted from their wages. The remaining money is used for house loans (30 years), car loans, and furniture loans, and then used for daily expenses. They basically have no money for a month. The remaining money, if any, will be used that month. An American friend of mine bought a house fifteen years ago for 110,000 yuan. He borrowed 110,000 yuan from the bank. Three years ago, he still owed the bank about 100,000 yuan. (The money paid back in the first few years of the loan was all interest.) At that time, we House prices here have soared, and a house that originally cost 110,000 yuan has increased to 200,000 yuan. At that time, he borrowed another loan from the bank and used the house as a mortgage to get a loan of 100,000 yuan. So now the boss owes 200,000 yuan to the bank. He bought a new car with the 100,000 yuan he brought, renovated the house, replaced it with some new furniture, etc. The 100,000 yuan was spent like this. . But now the house prices have fallen sharply, and his house is now only worth 120,000 yuan. But he still owes the bank two hundred thousand. Examples like my friend are not isolated phenomena. In the past few years, the prices of houses here have been rising desperately. Many people borrowed money (loans from banks) to buy houses. After buying the houses, they wanted to wait for the house prices to rise before selling them. But now the house prices have dropped to the price before the price increase. (Basically half the price of the highest price). Therefore, many people return their houses to the bank because they cannot sell their houses and cannot pay for them. Just like that, the subprime mortgage crisis emerged and the financial crisis came. With the economic downturn, fewer people are consuming and more layoffs are being laid off in all walks of life. Those American families who live on wages and usually have no savings are unemployed and have no fixed income, which is equivalent to ruining their families. I recently heard a story from the American news. In a family in California, both husband and wife lost their jobs. After the husband killed three others, he killed his wife and then committed suicide. Nowadays, all walks of life in the United States are laying off employees. If you are unemployed now, it will be difficult to find another job in a short time.