Failure by design

Ok, so on my disappointing Sunday night I was coaxed into watching Sex and the city (At gun point). Now the most interesting thing about the night was one of the ads by Scotia bank. Yes the bank infamous for their “Your richer than you think” commercials.

Well the industry famous for subprime, the housing crisis has out done itself with the  Bank the rest program. For consumers who really have no clue how to live within their means you can now “save” with every purchase you make! Score!

You see for every purchase you make, you can choose to have it rounded up to the nearest dollar or five dollars. The difference is “conveniently” deposited into a saving account that costs a fee to remove from directly (you can transfer funds from one account to another).

The fact that this product exists, does not lend itself to sustainable society. Remember 50% of americans (Canadians savings rate is note very much better, but we have CPP) aged 50-55 have less than $15,000 saved for retirement (National Post). Also out of the 120 million tax payers, 20 million took out loans to get their stimulus checks early. Is that sad? U.S. Government consumes 89% of the entire world savings for the last two years, to fund their account deficit and now their own citizens borrow money to get that borrowed money a few weeks early.

I am really curious on how this baby boomer generation is going to be in 10 years or so and what effect it is going to have on me. Comments?

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