
One of the most important books ever written, The Richest Man in Babylon, is ostensibly not to be found on most Black people's bookshelf. USA Today has recently published a shocking story regarding the un-niggardly mores of Black people and their lowly savings rate.
Black people are not fond of saving money, when compared to their white counterparts:
"African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites or Asians to take a hardship withdrawal from their 401(k) plans. The withdrawal rate also was higher for Hispanics, although not as high as African Americans'. Asians had the lowest rate....African Americans and Hispanics also are much more likely to take money out of their 401(k) plans for emergencies, which could further stunt long-term savings growth. And they are less likely to invest in stocks in favor of low-risk investments and real estate, increasing the risk that their savings won't keep pace with inflation, retirement specialists say."The article would go on to state:
"Since 401(k) plans are now the primary retirement savings tool and the savings disparities are so significant, it's apparent that minorities are likely to retire with less financial security, said Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments."Without a significant effort to improve savings and investing behaviors, African-American and Hispanic workers are in danger of retiring into poverty," she said in a statement."Black people, based on this study of 401(k) plans, have the innate ability to save, although it would appear, according Alicia Munnell, that:
Taken into context, don't these quotes about inheriting money and the purported disadvantaged groups just further substantiate the idea of innate inability to save money among Black people, if they are unable to have any money to pass on to their progeny, it would lead any sane person to infer from the available data that generations of Black people have never saved money."African Americans and Hispanics also are less likely to inherit money than whites, Munnell says, which leaves less of a financial cushion against hard times. As a result, she says, these groups have a tougher time putting money in a retirement account and also tend to be more cautious about investing in the unpredictable stock market.
Minorities also may be held back by family obligations, says Monique Morrissey, economist at the Economic Policy Institute. If a worker comes from a demographic group that has been disadvantaged over generations, she says, the individual is more likely to be responsible for family members."
Black people haven't just started not saving money, as this USA Today article would want you to believe, but have always been against saving money, hence the reality of generations of Black people without money to inherit. No one saved any in the previous generation.
Dave Chappelle, the comic Black people don't like, has shown us in a hilarious skit what will happen when reparations are finally given to Black people, and the results fit in nicely with the reality of "delayed gratification" that Black people seem to not like either.
In the skit from his hit-TV show, Chappelle lampoons Black people who have recently received reparations:
"...Chappelle reparations skit, where blacks blow it all on trucks of menthol cigarettes, gold chains, FUBU, fried chicken, and so on was in essence what would happen. In something approaching amazement, he asked me if I was aware it was satire. Of course, but only in the aesthetic particulars; the wasteful splurging with no thought of tomorrow was obviously what would happen, just as with lottery winners."The idea of "Delayed Gratification" is not just a nefarious stereotype of Black people, as the USA Today published study on Black peoples inability to save - conducted by Hewitt Associates - proves. Black people, as one prominent psychologist has written, display:
"The impulsiveness component of psychopathic personality includes an inability or unwillingness to delay immediate gratification in the expectation of long-term advantage. The first study to demonstrate differences between blacks and whites in the delay of gratification was carried out by W. Mischel in Trinidad in the late 1950s. He offered black and white children the choice between a small candy bar now or a larger one in a week. He found black children were much more likely to ask for the small candy bar now, and this difference has been confirmed in three subsequent American studies. This racial difference has been noted but given different names by different writers. In The Unheavenly City Revisited, Edward Banfield writes of the “extreme present-orientation” of blacks, and Michael Levin writes of “high time preference,” an economist’s term for preferring cash now rather than a greater sum in the future."Black people live for the now, epitomized by the idea of "Get rich or die trying" which is the ethos for the Black community. Black people will continue to view saving money for the future as Stuff Black People Don't Like and will continue to blame others for the generational problems.
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Reparations 2003 | ||||
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Chappelle's Show | ||||
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