Americans have staggering amounts of debt; it only stands to
get worse
If you're like most Americans, you owe a lot of money to a lot
of people. In years past, credit was hard to obtain, and if you
needed cash, you had to go to the bank and try to obtain a
personal loan. That may or may not have been possible, depending
on whether you knew your banker well or not.
Today, things are different. Thanks to credit scoring and
automated tracking of spending habits, creditors are willing to
lend money and lend it both quickly and often. And Americans
have jumped on the bandwagon in record numbers to incur debt in
every way possible.
.We owe money on credit cards. Lots of it. The average US
household has NINETEEN different credit cards and a total
outstanding average balance of just under $10,000. That amount
has more than doubled in the last decade, far outstripping
increases in salary. What possible reason could anyone have for
needing nineteen credit cards?
More often than not, these cards include more than one of a
given type, such as multiple Visa or Mastercard accounts, for
example. What happens when we own so many cards? We fail to pay
our balances. In the last quarter, credit card delinquencies
reached an all-time high, with nearly 5% of all customers
missing payments.
We're buying more expensive homes than ever, but we're not
investing more in them. Many, if not most, buyers are now taking
out risky loans that require little payment of principal, such
as Option ARM loans or interest only loans. We're not buying
more house; we're just buying more debt. What's the result of
this? Foreclosure rates are beginning to skyrocket, as buyers
realize that they have signed on to more house than they can
afford.
We're spending it on cars. The auto industry will sell more than
twenty million cars this year, a high not achieved in nearly 20
years. And the average car loan now exceeds five years'
duration, with many running seven or eight years. When was the
last time you or anyone you know took out a three year car loan?
The bottom line - As a nation, we're up to our eyeballs in debt.
We owe too much on credit cards, too much on our houses and too
much on our cars. And it's catching up. As the deadline for the
new bankruptcy law approached, record numbers of people were
filing for bankruptcy and attorneys reported that they were
actually having to turn down business due to the incredible
volume of calls.
When attorneys are so busy that they can't take a call from a
bankrupt consumer, we've got a problem. We could be on the verge
of a recession, or even a full-fledged depression if the housing
market collapses. What to do? We've got to start saving money
again. Now.
Talbert Williams offers debt consolidation referrals and
advice. For more information, articles, news, tools and valuable
resources on debt solutions, visit this site:
http://www.1debtfreedom.com
About the author:
Talbert Williams offers debt consolidation referrals and
advice. For more information, articles, news, tools and valuable
resources on debt solutions, visit this site:
http://www.1debtfreedom.com
