Economists report the household debt to be at its highest in decades. Yet, at the same time, we are being told that the economy is doing great. Does anyone see a serious contradiction?
In fact, the current economy only favors the wealthy owing to their flourishing financial assets such as stocks and bonds. Owing to the lack of real assets such as property and commodities, the middle and lower classes are becoming overwhelmed due to the serious consequences of the spending/debt cycle.
American consumers have a collective outstanding household debt of about $13.15 trillion of which nearly $1 trillion is the credit card debt alone, households are truly on a debt binge. These figures should be a wake-up call to all the Americans. The convulsive household debt has surpassed the bubble of 2008 and is still escalating. The economy may not be doing so great, after all.
Compared to 2008, the automobile credit balances have increased to $367 billion whereas the outstanding student loans are around $671 billion. Moreover, 67 percent of household debts belong to consumer mortgages. In 2016, twenty-five percent of all the Americans purchased a new or used vehicle and two-thirds of them are repaying through high-interest, long-term loans.
In fact, the consumer debt has exceeded their income for majority of the Americans.
Consumers have become accustomed using easy credit to maintain a lifestyle unaffordable for them otherwise. If this trend continues, and facts indicate that it will, we will be facing a monumental credit crisis in the near future.
A huge portion of credit card debt is the interest. Credit cards are a convenience and consumers readily pay for the privilege. However, it is necessary for consumers to know how credit card interest actually works.
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