Math Is Hard

Interest rates are unsustainably low. This leads me to a thought. (I have one from time to time) How much money would one need in a passbook savings account to have an income of a modest $24,000 a year? Well,  the rate varies up to .85%. So the math is:

X * .0085=24,000. 

You would need 2.8 million in the bank. 

What this means is those who have been prudent and saved cannot live off their savings. The government is stealing from widows. Let me don my prophet hat, or rather let Isaiah in Isaiah 10 don his:

10 1-4 Doom to you who legislate evil,
    who make laws that make victims—

Laws that make misery for the poor,
    that rob my destitute people of dignity,
Exploiting defenseless widows,
    taking advantage of homeless children.
What will you have to say on Judgment Day,
    when Doomsday arrives out of the blue?
Who will you get to help you?
    What good will your money do you?
A sorry sight you’ll be then, huddled with the prisoners,
    or just some corpses stacked in the street.
Even after all this, God is still angry,
    his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.

Do the "powers that be" think they can get away with this? Yes, they do. 

But interest rates are not just low, they are not just at a low point in a cycle, they are as low as they have ever been in the history of the world. I have quoted Herb Stein many times, "What can't continue, won't continue." How long do we have? I have no idea. 

But sooner or later "the chickens will come home to roost," "the fecal matter will hit the air circulation device," or they that have "sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind." Pick your favorite cheesy cliché. 

Get ready.