I know plenty of people who have defaulted on their loans, and probably 20% of all the adults I know have been through bankruptcy at some point in their life. I was unemployed for some time and people told me I was an idiot for not filing for bankruptcy, but I refused to do so... and I'm happy I did. They were my bills, I was responsible for them.
I don't have any debt, so I'm watching my tens of thousands of dollars rot away in the bank due to inflation and 1% APRs.
That's the thing that sucks, the people that actually pay for the deadbeats are the responsible people who end up paying higher interest rates and getting lower dividends. When you default on a loan or credit card, the bank doesn't eat that cost, they just pass it on to others.
Rest easy, most of it goes to the "nearbeats" like me who don't have large mortgages or travel, but make just enough to not really have to "think" about the dozen or so auto-debits for the annual wardrobe overhaul, student loans or car note every five years. Large limits from random obscure banks in South Dakota and Las Vegas. Zero balances with monthly convenience fees, credit extension fees, double-digit service fees for "express" online payments (lest you wait the standard 7 business days for the payment to hit your account).
I realize some people have no choice, but we've become a nation that lives on credit... when just a generation ago people didn't buy anything they didn't pay cash for. I know, I've been stupid and gotten tens of thousands and dollars in debt, twice in my life and worked my way back. The problem is the people that just don't give a damn about it.
I remember hearing my peers about 7-8yrs ago saying "Everyone has debt, the main thing is how you MANAGE your debt," and thinking how stupid it was to take a problem like that and think of it as an eventuality. DO NOT GO INTO WILLINGLY INTO THAT DEBT, make smart decisions with your life. You don't need to get a bunch of the stuff you might be used to, and you can still love comfortably.
Silver is a great investment too... as it is used in nearly every electronic device and has a MUCH easier to swallow entry level. Diversify in precious metals, guns and land.
Well, we just went through massive debt deflation. What you see below you is mainly the product of the baby-boomers.
People (myself included a few years ago) think they need a bunch a stuff they don't need as if it legitimizes them. That's why we take out student loans to avoid just getting a manual labor job because heaven forbid you be a blue collar worker. We're a nation of people who need to humble ourselves if anything.
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Well that's funny, I'm not a Democrat nor am I really politically active. If anything, I'd be a moderate. That's if I took politics seriously.
What is the point of articles like this? Not really a lot of hard or new data here, but a lot of obnoxious moralizing about the evils of debt.. ....which of course then gets imported to inapplicable contexts like gov't borrowing. It's ironic how some of the hardest-core laissez-faire people in the universe simultaneously turn around and make emotional appeals to shame and decency and honor when it comes to things like this. It's not immoral to walk away from an underwater mortgage that it makes more sense to default on than to continute paying - it's an economically rational choice - it's capitalism. If the lender doesn't like the consequences they should have bargained for better terms.
I have always wondered about that contradiction. The same people decrying the "deadbeats" want no government interference and do not want any limitations on whom can borrow money and under what conditions. Although I suspect they would openly embrace debtor's prison for folks making under $250,000.
Both of these ^^^ People want to "use" debt and for the most part it ends up biting them in the butt. My wife and I make a combined $110k a year and we drive a '98 Saturn with 184,000 miles and a '03 Alero with 133,000 miles. Yet, we see people who make less than half of our salary driving brand new nice cars or SUV's. Or they take student loans and then graduate and buy brand new TVs, immediately buy a house, spend a lot of money on clothes - basically blow their money instead of paying off the loans - which later they feel the pressure of the loans and blame everything else except their spending habits.
