You are absolutely right. I was being sarcastic in my first post, although I did vote in the poll. Had it been public, I wouldn't have. Yet if people want to lay their personal finances out before the world, they can certainly do so. In a general way, it's true that far too many folks are deeply in debt, and many have seen what is, for a lot of Americans, their most important investment, their home, take a dive in value, in some cases, below what they paid for it. That's hard to take. In my neighborhood, I haven't had that problem, and my home is nearly paid off, in any case, but my situation isn't typical and I've had many more years to "take care of business" than most of you. The best thing to do is pay down that debt, whatever it takes. And remember this... this current generation is the first in American history to have a lower standard of living than their parents. Think about that, and ponder who is to blame. My own opinion is that the blame falls squarely on the Republican Party. They ran a candidate for President who thought that tax cuts for the rich while fighting two wars was a good thing, even if it had never been done before in American history, one of those wars being something he just felt like doing, the b*stard, and lied about to drag us into it, and that political party has lied to the middle class, raped the middle class, crapped all over the middle class, the whole time telling them that they were doing the exact opposite. So if your are mad about how things are, there's your target... the Republican Party. The party pumping up the wealth of those who don't need it, and busy destroying the American middle class, the largest in the world, while lying to them the entire time.
I could answer yes to any of six of those choices depending on how I feel about a couple of my investments on a particular day....
I have very little in savings (<$10,000 excluding retirement accounts) I have a mortgage (<$60,000) I have a car loan for one of my 2 cars, but for less than the value And then I have my student loans that I absolutely hate.
some student loans are good, some are bad. If you are getting say a MD, then your student loans are going to be good most likely. If you are getting some kind of humanity degree and have to take out a big loan, then chance are it is a bad debt.
It would be interesting to have some accurate info on assets vs political opinion. I suspect that it would, in order of decreasing wealth be: Libertarians generally (percentage of the self identified) Conservatives generally " Liberals generally " However, we have the poles of each group and this would be very interesting to know. I would guess/rank in decreasing wealth as: Rich liberal professionals and the relatively few from big money Libertarians the young and idealistic or rich wannabes. Conservatives, the Christian Right
Good debt vs bad debt is pretty simple concept. Good debt: Brings you income Bad debt: Takes from your income Examples of good debt: Rental property Examples of bad debt: mortgage, student loans, car loans home equity is an asset. If you take out a 200k line of credit from a credit card and buy 3 cheap rental homes and it produces a positive cashflow, then your credit card is considered good debt.
Boy, the recession has really tainted people's perceptions of mortgages. There are good mortgages and bad mortgages. There are good student loans and bad student loans. Painting with a broad brush on those types of debts is silly.
Mortgage is bad debt? Car loans are bad debt? Rental Property is good debt? Generally, mortgages are good debt. Your alternative is paying rent, which is paying the lessor's debt. Car loans are generally the cheapest debt you can get. For rental debt, what happens when you don't have renters? It is a business venture like any other, and comes with risks. Many people lose money on rentals.
HUGE home mortgage -- but I live in a fat crib Paid off my car, which is nice don't keep a balance on my credit card owe some $$ to Sam Hurd, but I may not have to repay it! Good debt right there!
Every single individual in the United States has ~$45,000 of debt on their head, thanks to our disastrous government. That level is growing every day that this reckless administration continues to operate unchecked. About half of that amount was racked up in the last 3 years under the failed Obama/Geithner/Bernanke administration. In the coming weeks, Obama will ask Congress to increase the debt another 7-8%. We are ceding control of our nation to our creditors -- China and Japan most notably. Do not be fooled, you will pay this amount back -- either in the form of a dramatically weakened currency (which will result in much higher food and energy costs and ultimately higher interest rates), increased borrowing costs, fewer public services/entitlements in the future, less protection (fire, police, military) or higher taxes.
Confusing poll, should two separate one for debt and one for savings. I have 50k+ in student loans and 50k+ in savings.
yeah it was confusing, my intention was the "net" whether + or - (so your $50k and -$50k would be "debt free" in my poll, sorry I'm not an economist), and if it was -, like some of the posts here, whether the debt was being used to generate income ie. good debt. I wanted to have a quick look at the poll numbers, even though it's not scientific.. and it seems like ~20% of the population has "bad debt" in terms of net worth. I'm not sure if that's lower or higher than what you would want to see, but I'm wondering what these numbers mean. How % it has to do with some of the wars that a few posters mentioned, and what % has to do with the concept of "living beyond your means".
~25K in student loan debt, ~30K in savings Graduated last December, the folks have let me stay at home until I finish the CPA exam (still need to take BEC later this month) and I almost never use my credit card, so I'm lucky. Should be in good shape when I get my own place and officially become a grown-up.
Come on man - you think the other party wasn't completely complicit into running our country into the ground? Frank / Dodd? Changing the leverage rules to 40/1 from 12/1? Obama hasn't lifted a finger to help anyone except his cronies and unions, and managed to massively increase our debt at the same time. I fully expect more of the same crap if Romney gets the throne next.
OMG I am in the top category. What's more, I have some employees. Should I send in my app to the Libertarian Party? or at least the GOP? Just think of how much more money I could have if I did not have to pay pay roll taxes or self employed ss and unemployment insurance-- " a free paid vacation" according to Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of conservatives and the GOP. Hey if we could go full libertarian in this economy and abolish minimum wages, get rid of the income and sales taxes and property taxes and all that crap I could even have a butler and a driver and a pool man, a personal shopper, a trainer, a dance instructor, a full time "kid" to show me how to do tech things like post photos on this bbs. Hell I could just say: "kid, go research "libertarianism" and let's just smoke the Ron Paulites whose "libertarianism" is a pamphlet or two deep. *hit I could be so happy. I could live like a rich person in bumfuc*istan. On second thought I would have to build a wall and a mote and a wall and hire body guards and security personnel to keep the starving masses from taking all my crap. Damn, what a pain to have a second though and wake up from my libertarian dream world and be confronted by shi*ty reality.
isn't Barack Obama single handedly served the United States of America to Goldman Sachs on a golden plate?
