Credit Card Debt
The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt
Array (Paperback) Yale University Press 2001-09-01
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It appears to me that the average income in California is in 70th percentile for the united states, while their credit card debt is top three in the nation. Add in the price of housing and the cost of living, is the average Californian poorer than their equal in the midwest or in the northwest?
California has a wide range of incomes. Poor migrant works to Hollywood types. If you are in the Hollywood industries, showing that you are wealth is part of the job, even if you are not. The same way an investment broker needs to wear nice clothes, a nice watch, and drive a nice car, after all if they look like they need the money how are they going to treat your money…..
After living all over the US, I would not rank Californians as talking about their money the most. Yes, I view them as the most over extended financially. I see and hear more people talking about money matters in parts of New York City, and DC than anywhere else. New England as a whole seems to be quieter about their money, and the millionaire next door drives a beat up car because it still runs and there is no need to change it yet.
US issues $7 trillion debt, supply to stabilize finance.yahoo.com AP source: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body www.google.com Moody ...
Health Care, Credit Card debt, Mortgages, Cars and Groceries; nothing is affordable anymore.
Once upon a time a middle class family could afford to pay their bills without resorting to credit cards and/or loans. And only one person had to work in the average family forty years ago.
The United States is turning into Mexico - made up of only rich and poor, with a pesky middle class that is an endangered species.
Our standard of living is under attack, yet no one is doing anything about it.
The rich, just as they always have, don't care about anyone else's economic misery. If they lose a few domestic customers for their products, they can always export.
Is the middle class doomed to extinction? What will happen to the U.S.A. once we're gone?
The Constitution was altered from securing rights to each citizen adult individual in1902. The change was to public-interest fantasizing, conducted by benevolent government tsars elected by their victims. the middle class began to die as a group that day; the process was completed in 1994, when he constitution was finished.
Your figures are correct. My father as a postal worker
on a salary in 1941 of $4.000 was able to support a wife, 2 children, own a modern-day $300,000 house, a new equivalent to a $30,000 car, take vacations and own half an acre of land. To own what he did today, he would have to earn $104,000 a year--but even his partially-protected government job now pays only $28,000. That's a loss of purchasing power of over 75% during that time--and the
similar loss for those NOT government connected has been much worse.
Only the floating of credit card debt has kept people from realizing the 3 truths of the economy:
1. It is totalitarian--money does not exist, only collectives--some holding power over others, others in power over you.
2. 85% of the nation's wealth has been arrogated by monopolists alloowed to function so by the government--in financial organzations, media, departments, unions, educational institutios and the military etc.
3. Only credit cards have stopped US citizens from realizing how bad their plight is: no retirement possibe, no safety from health care costs, no marketplaces of categorically defined products, jobs and job competitions,
no protection through government, no meaningful elections, no real arts, no real monetary system, no education in scientific prioritized inner-workings definitions that means anything, and no lives worth the having.
Your questions asks for a "bottom line"--the US can go on in some fashion for another 500 years. But it will be effectively dead of its own deregulational totalitarianism long before that date in the early 2530s is reached, a victim of the betrayal of its republic's constitution.
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Do you know anyone in credit card debt???? Do you know what it feels like when you can't pay your bills? What would you do about it? Wouldn't you want to fix the problem as soon as you could?
Well the US Government is 9.2 TRILLION dollars in debt. All government property amounts to Less than 2 trillion, and nearly 11 Trillion is what the government OWES back.
We have 35 Agencies and no money. So tell me where you want the money to go? Do it now, take a few seconds or minutes and think.
Here are your options
Department of the Treasury
Department of Defense
Office of Personnel Management
Department of Energy
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Social Security Administration
Tennessee Valley Authority
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Department of Labor
Department of Transportation
Department of State
Agency for International Development
Department of Justice
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
United States Postal Service
National Science Foundation
Environmental Protection Agency
Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
National Credit Union Administration
Smithsonian Institution
Federal Communications Commission
Securities and Exchange Commission
Department of Commerce
Department of the Interior
General Services Administration
Small Business Administration
Railroad Retirement Board
Department of Agriculture
Department of Homeland Security
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Education
Department of Veterans Affairs
Now that you see how much the government has the potential to provide, why would you not value its potential, before wishing the extinction of all these services.
I would cut down to these at first, then maybe more
Department of the Treasury
Department of Defense
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Social Security Administration
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Department of Labor
Department of Justice
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
United States Postal Service
Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Securities and Exchange Commission
Department of Commerce
Department of the Interior
General Services Administration
Small Business Administration
Railroad Retirement Board
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Department of Health and Human Services
I have a proposal for a remedy to the economic recession. I honor the decision to bail out the banks and large corporations and can understand the thought process in providing billions of taxpayer dollars to do so. I believe I have a plan that will help the US citizens, boost the economy, prevent the majority of home foreclosures, and put business back in business. My plan would stop the negative state of fear that is prevailing throughout the country, reduce the large credit card debt, if not eliminate it, and reduce the large welfare debt.
My plan is simple. There are at last count approximately 295,469,285 people in the US. My plan is less costly than continuing to bail out big businesses that will continue to do business as usual and be a drain on our economy. Classes in budgeting are my recommendation for them. 750 billion dollars plus has already been given to big business with no help to the average American that is struggling to live and watching their life savings, retirement, and college funds dissolve. Provide one million dollars to each US citizen tax free which would be 295,469,285 dollars. The economy would boost, car sales would increase, and banks would not see foreclosures but payoffs of mortgages. Welfare and food stamps would decrease. The only stipulation (and please don't change this as it would change the outcome drastically) would be that the recipient needs to be a legal United States Citizen. No one is to be eliminated from receiving this. No other qualifications exist. They do not have to pay taxes on this money. It must be paid to everyone......NO EXCEPTIONS other than a legal US citizen. Welfare is not an exclusion. homeless or mentally ill is not an exclusion. Nursing homes, social security, retirement are not exclusions. I believe you get the idea.
The cost is well below the amount being considered to bail out the car industries. Think of the money generated into the economy, the standard of living of every legal US citizen is increased. People can buy a home so the construction business would bloom. People would pay off debt and home mortgages reducing the credit card crisis, bankruptcy, and the mortgage crisis.
Put the money in the hands of the consumer if you are looking to bail anyone out. The American people would have to continue working at their jobs, if employed.
The American people are wondering why we are helping the big businesses that have created this problem and that we are left with a huge debt beyond our control. The consumer drives the economy and business....not business.
The answer is for you to smoke less weed. Oh yeah, and go to math class.
WASHINGTON - Rolling out powerful new weapons against the financial meltdown, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve pledged $800 billion Tuesday to blast through blockades on credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other borrowing. Total bailout commitments, loans and pledges of backing neared a staggering $7 trillion
http://news.yahoo.com/i/749;_ylt=AkwYrN5 CbQgWrQW3_HUbiPQDW7oF
The printing press -must be working overtime - another 800 billion has been ordered up
700 B for the elite but incompetent bankers who needed the taxpayers to buy them some real estate - ( they paid off outstanding loans on mortgages - kept the houses - and the government got a seat at the board room )
The auto sector asks for 85 B - and told no --- not without a plan and media told us all about their opulent jets (the bankers took the bus and kept their transfer to the corporate welfare office - located behind the paper mills that grind out pieces of paper such as cheques and currency )
Now another 800 B ---is happening - maybe the auto sector should add some zero's to there request because Paulson doesn't deal in fiddling small change ?
----------------------
Billion
1,000,000,000 (number), one thousand million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
Trillion
1,000,000,000,000 (one million million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion
Total US debt
$ 1 0 , 6 5 9 , 2 3 3 , 5 9 8 , 2 5 2 . 6 9
The estimated population of the United States is 305,162,410
so each citizen's share of this debt is $34,929.71.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$3.89 billion per day since September 28, 2007!
At this rate how far can hyper inflation be ?
John Maynard Keynes described the situation in The Economic Consequences of the Peace: "The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_i n_the_Weimar_Republic
Well -- maybe in this case the US can't borrow it fast enough and therefore chooses to print it --- either way that description of the Wiemar republic now fits the US -- doesn't it
Chelfi
Well that is more than a little bit disturbing
But thank you for it -
Sleeping Gypsy --
Don't say that too loud our Mayor will dispatch police to guard the hole if he hears about it
LOL
Sinking fast and we just sit here looking at the holes.
:o) wise guy (o:
How to Reduce Credit Card Debt
The average credit card debt for card holders in the United States is roughly five thousand dollars; in these hard economic times, as they attempt to make ends meet, some people may have found that debt soaring even higher. For many, there has never been as urgent a need to reduce that credit card debt than today. If financial matters have always been tough or unpleasant for you to deal with, it’s especially important to make sure you develop a strategy with which to work with this debt. Here are a few tips on how one might begin to accomplish that task, reducing the stress one feels over such a burden at the same time.
If possible, you’ll want to be sure to exceed the minimum payment on the cards each month. New laws regarding credit cards will make companies tell you how long it will take to repay a debt by using the minimum payment — and it can be shocking, taking years and even decades. While paying the minimum payments may keep you from defaulting on the cards, it’s only advisable for the short-term; it’s won’t be a long-term solution. Be sure to pay on time each month as well, and never assume that the due date will remain the same. In some cases, the due dates aren’t fixed and will float. Making a late payment will incur new fees and may increase the finance charges, creating even larger debt. If you must pay a minimum payment, make it a priority to pay it on time. In order to do all this, develop a system to reduce the debt by keeping track of these payments and their due dates. Remember, too, that it’s possible to negotiate with credit card companies. In many instances, a collection department will work with you. You may have to tell them that you’re having financial problems and need the interest rates lowered. Their response often will be to ask what you can do. This may result in the lowering of the rate as well as cutting down or eliminating finance charges in the future. Sometimes card companies will offer better deals if you switch to their account. Talk to your own company and tell them about these deals and see if they can do better, then choose the company providing the lowest rate.
...News
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