It is something of a myth, though, that Americans "don't save." Most Americans have medical covered through "forced savings" at work; they have retirement handled through "forced pensions" and Social Security---rightly or wrongly, they contribute money that they might not otherwise, and that IS a form of savings; and homes are usually a reason people save---but if mortgage interest deductions makes it logical to purchase homes on time, the incentive to save for that is gone.
When you factor medical "savings," pension and SS "savings," and the mortgage interest rate factor (and I have seen a study on this), guess what? Americans save about as much as everyone else. Now, granted, some countries have "forced" savings that exceed ours, but usually not private medical or retirement plans. If the main three things people "used" to save for are now handled by "forced savings," saving does not become that important. My parents saved to buy 1) a house; 2) to retire; and 3) for medical emergencies. Well, those things are all dealt with differently now. I'd prefer to go back, but it is delusional to pretend that the "forced savings" do not exist or are not having real economic effects.
Unfortunately these savings simply do not exist. Social Security has been raided so many times it is now just a stack of IOU's. Benefits will either be reduced or the government (since it is the largest debtor in the room) will inflate its way out of the problem.( I assuming inflation is still possible??) Either way the weakest players will get screwed, as always.
Since 1989, one could say that the market indices shot up by a factor of 5 or more, but a current check of my former LA neighborhood reveals home prices near or below their '89 values. What bubble? Currently, my locale in the infamous Bay Area reveals the price of my condo as about twice the selling price when first built in 1991. Again, given the acute shortage of affordable homes in this area and the lack of building, this is not even a bubble, by a longshot.
Now I DO know of homes is certain, specific communities that shot up by a factor of 2 or more in a few years time. Not to mention home prices in outlying communities that are far from work centers and not that desireable to live, have doubled. These areas are the prime dangers zones.
This would be more accurately described as forced spending since the money is immediately squandered without ever being put to any productive use.
Ever wonder why our fiscal burden of government is 2X greater than Communist China, well Social Security is the single largest government expenditure.
Ever wonder why our manufacturing base has fled the country?
Good ole Otto Von Bismarck is probably having a good laugh.
Your talking about basic life support at retirement. Everything I've been reading comes to a different conclusion. The average credit card in the US has a balance of $8K. Well over 50% of workers cash out their 401K's when switching jobs. I've been reading that some lenders are putting people into too much home for their overall earnings. Low interest rates won't help if a job loss occurs.
Your situation is what happens in a free market situation, that is high turnover and low inflation. In your area, you have lots of flat land, few environmental regulation, and not much of a traffic problem or a white flight problem.
In many places, it is hard to develope land without paying off the politicians and doing environmental set asides. In Northern Cal, it is hard to find flat land that is not environmentally regulated or within a reasonable commute. The traffic congestion, lack of flat or environmentally unencumbered land, make land ownership more like a monopoly and we know what happens with monopolies. White flight can also add to the problem as whites will pay twice the price to not have minorities around.