Do You have a Credit Card? A Loan? A Mortgage? Then you are equally at fault for the Economy.

If they did away with credit cards, so everyone would have to purchase with their own money...wede not have a crredit problem* thats what i think. you have $300,000 in cash you saved, its your money, and if you wanna buy a hosue or car with it, then so be it! it would be a starigth forward no strings attached busness transaction, betwen the dealer and new owner* another part of the problem is, usualy if you want ot take out or spend over $10,000 in CASH, your going o be investiagted, byt he bank and/or IRS. so automatically, your guilty until proven innocent. In business terms, they wanna make sure your not a drug dealer* despite the CIA gets awayw tih it like it was promoted murder. thats itself also, forces one to have to get a credit card.

Originally posted by tallwater

Originally posted by fraterormus
No one forced them to have a 4,500 sq. house, 3 BMWs, an In-ground Swimming Pool, and the latest fashions from London and Paris every season.

I believe they were forced. Through brainwashing.......very effective advertising.

However, most of the people I know in debt don't have 3 BMW's. They are just trying to survive.

They were not forced. Simple case of "keeping up with the Joneses",or in biblical terms, coveting your neighbours plasma screen. Advertising is just as much about making people feel good about their purchases as it is getting them to purchase in the first place. Ads abut candy bars are designed to appeal to you so you buy a candy bar. Ads for a BMW are meant to make Mr. BMW feel good about buying his BMW, not to induce want (necessarily), that comes from people seeing Mr BMW in his BMW.

People want things they cannot afford. I see people making the same old statements about "well they had a job when they bought it, it's not their fault". I say bullcrap. If they could have afforded it, they would have bought it outright and had no debt. So, the fact is that they could not afford it and put themselves into debt to get it. Their fault. This is the effect of consumerism in a capitalist society, where making money is the be all end all and your status is portrayed by the display of lavish goods you had to borrow money to own. It's like a who's who of losers, spot the idiot with the most debt.

The banks might share in some of the blame by handing out loans to every tom dick and harry, but those people wanted those loans mostly to satisfy their own impatient greed.

quality of life laws were put into place so that the demand for better things became a necessity, to keep you out of jail and to be able to keep your own children. this began the onset of credit card misuse. had the laws remained realistic, the credit card misuse would be nearly non-existent. so part of the problem can also be said to be directly proportional to the severity of laws regarding quality of life issues.

reply to post by quackers


i don't think this is really the issue. people who can afford such things are usually capable of repaying the debt in the first place. where the problem arises is when the requirements for quality of life standards in law, surpass the ability of the poorest segment of the population to repay it - so they get credit to survive the laws

[edit on 2-10-2009 by undo]

case in point:

when we were younger, we lived in a state that did safety and emissions tests every year. you couldn't get the sticker for your license plate to legally drive the next year, if you didn't pass these tests. poor people typically bought old used cars because that was all they could afford or qualified for, which was our case. the thing would break down every other month, costing us more money in the long run but that was the only option we had. so by the time safety and emissions rolled along, we would grit our teeth and pray that nothing was wrong.

we ended up having to borrow from those check cashing places to be able to maintain a legally operating vehicle that had passed both safety and emissions. the check cashing place would accept a check written in advance of your payday, with a huge and i mean huge interest rate attached. this became a vicious and extremely expensive cycle. eventually credit cards seemed the more logical route because the alternative was twice the original amount given. so we took out a small, secured signature loan from the bank, tightened our belts even more (5 of us in a one bedroom basement apartment infested with rats and black widows) and established enough credit on his signature to be able to get credit and credit cards

multiply that by all the poor people of the last 40 years and there's your culprit.

reply to post by undo


I'm going to have to disagree with you. Quality of life has nothing to do with want. It is want that drives people into debt, not necessity.

Poor folk can just about feed themselves and keep a roof over their head. They might not have much to their names but most of what they have is theirs and they tend to be more frugal with money.

Rich folk are rich, they can buy what they want outright, or with very little added interest. Money is not an issue so much as their income exceeeds their outgoing.

The middle classes do not want to appear to be poor, they want to appear to be rich, or at least certainly better off than the poor. In order to achieve this they rack up as much debt as possible so as to be financially in the same position as the poor, but with the appearance of being rich. No one forces them into this position. Had they been better with money they would save and then buy, not buy and then pay they off with interest. That is just impatience.

I'd rather be poor and own everything I have than be middle class but own nothing I possess. Want and greed have nothing to do with quality of life. People just assume it will make their lives better when obviously that is not the case.

reply to post by quackers


read my last post. you'll see the process.
the law requires x,y, z.
you have to abide by it because it's a _________(fill in the blank, in the case of cars, it's a priviledge not a right).

hubby was active duty military during all this, and we were still so poor we qualified for food stamps and wikka (forget how to spell it now). we had to get food from soup kitchens just to survive, even though he was required to get injected with dangerous vaccines and go to hostile territories where he might be killed at any moment.

he came home from gulf war, and was a carrier of japanese tick borne encephalitis, a vaccine they had been given. i caught it from him and it put me in a coma, in the hospital on total life support. when i came out of the coma, i was no longer fit for work, and because we were caucasian and i hadn't worked long enough for social security or unemployment, i couldn't help the situation either.

so here we were, trying to survive on poverty level wages with only his income. that happened to alot of military people so multiply the above indebtedness due to quality of life issues by the military members who came home sick, or who inadvertently made members of their own family sick, compounding the problem.

[edit on 2-10-2009 by undo]

Do You have a Credit Card?

Nope.

A Loan?

Nope.

A Mortgage?

Nope.

Then you are equally at fault for the Economy.

Finally. Something that's not my fault!

Y'know, it wasn't so long ago that credit was considered a last ditch resource, and people were proud to work for their money, not expecting to make it off the stock market. I remember my Dad feeling ashamed that he had to take out a mortgage when we were forced to move. My Grandfather never had a loan in his life.

When exactly was it that these things changed? When instead of working hard to scrimp and save for what you wanted, you just got a loan, mortgage, or credit card, got what you wanted now, and stressed over being able to pay it back? Definitely a product of the last half century or so.

I have to say, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I still have those values taught to me by my Dad. That I never bought into the "easy payment plan" mentality. Sure, credit can be very helpful in an emergency. No argument there. But for the other 98% of your life, think how much prouder you'd be when everything you own was payed for with hard work, sacrifice, and discipline? When your personal world was constructed out of sweat, sore muscles, and perseverance.

Not to mention the fact that you paid actual price for everything, not price + interest.

I guess that in some instances, progress isn't such a good thing.

reply to post by subject x


when quality of life standards exceeded the ability of the poor to pay for them without breaking the law.

reply to post by D.E.M.


I'm afraid I have to say I think you're wrong on several counts.

People make financial decisions based on the information they are given. If a corporate media are constantly telling them that it is reasonable and acceptable to get into so much debt, they are responsible for lying.

If the banks and financial authorities allowed this to happen, if they allowed people who simply couldn't afford it to have such loans, they are responsible. They preyed on people in order to make a quick profit.

There is a lot of evidence coming to light that banks and financial institutions directly lied to people in order to process a loan, all the while knowing that the person couldn't possibly afford it and it would result in their debt becoming unmanageable.
If you know about the financial system, you'll also know that they didn't lose out in most of these cases, they simply made a profit on the interest alone.

However, I do agree that those who live far beyond their means, on credit, with several cars, a holiday every year, a house too big for them and so on... they are as responsible.
People who were unable to think "can I afford it" and "do I really need it" and instead just bought on credit should expect to see it all crumble.

And I have a very strong feeling that soon we'll see more of the Iceberg as the credit card companies start to show their cracks. People addicted to a lifestyle don't simply learn over night to control their spending, and I am certain many millions have continued to live off their cards.

I guess we'll see.

Either way, standards were dropped, limits were removed for greed by authorities that should have known better, governments failed to regulate, and people continued to spend beyond their means.
No one party is to blame, but the majority of the blame does not lie with the average consumer, because they were lied to.

reply to post by detachedindividual


but FIRST, they had to raise the quality of living standards to such a height that the average poor person couldn't afford it without credit.

reply to post by undo


Again, I'm going to have to disagree. Show me where the law tells me that I should own a 4 bedroom detached house. Show me where the law says that I should have 2 cars for every family member as well as all the insurance ect that comes with those. Show me where the law says I should own a PS3 and and 360 and all the latest titles for those. Show me where the law says I should own a contracted mobile phone. Show me where the law says it's illegal for me not to own a credit card.

While it sucks that you seem to have gotten the crap covered end of the stick in life, your issues should be dealt with by a fair welfare system. A system that ensures you are living above the poverty line. I would also go as far as to say that your case is not representative of the whole, simply due to the contributing factors. Most people do not get into debt becuase they absolutely have no other choice, they get into debt becuase they think they can get away with living above their means. The two are not the same thing, even if the end result is similar. One is through choice, you appear to have had no choice, and as such this thread is not about you, or people in a position similar to yours.

reply to post by quackers


k it works like this:


middle class people were the only people that could afford payments on those types of things. that's because they had jobs that paid middle class wages.

poor people on the other hand, couldn't afford to maintain the semblance of abiding by the higher standard of living laws, which were not set to reflect the larger population of poor people, but the smaller middle to upper class quality of life. this resulted in the poor getting loans and credit cards that they couldn't reasonably pay back because they couldn't get work or wages commensurate with the higher standards.

in turn, as soon as the middle class became predominantly part of the poor classes due to inflation not keeping up with the higher standard of living laws, they soon could not pay for what they could pay for before, ending up in the same situation the poor were already in. millions of people trying to maintain what they had before, no longer was possible, and they were relegated to just trying to maintain what was legal. but they still owed the debt created while they were able to pay it in the first place.

essentially, the entire economy is rigged in such a way to bring all of us into a sort of shared misery, where we can't afford to maintain the living standards expected of us ,and which makes any of us possible targets for breaking the standard of living laws, depending on who's in office, who your neighbor is, and how much help you can get from others.

Originally posted by D.E.M.
I want to paint a picture for you. I want to paint a conservative estimate of 100 million americans alone, each with 3 credit cards with an 8k maximum credit. Each of those cards is maxed, and the owners are merely shuffling the balance between the three and letting the interest grow. Do the math, that is 8,000,000,000 or 8 Billion in essentially stolen cash.

LOL. Peanuts.

If they lose sight of $8 billion over at the Treasury, no one puts too much effort to account for it.

The credit card companies anticipate loses like that. The execs know that they would go to jail for loan sharking some 80 years ago in many countries, and so they don't moralize their customers. You win some, you lose some . . .

[edit on 10/2/2009 by stander]

My wife and I, are very fortunate. We don't owe anyone a red cent.

Everything is paid for. All we have to do, is keep up with taxes, and maintaining what we have.

I have struggled to live within our means, at the wife's insistence. It is all too easy to start buying whims and wants via plastic. So, for those things, I have to save up my meager allowance monthly. I have $200.oo a month to do with what I want. She has the same...We very often pool our money, and do something big, like take a vacation some place. At our age, we really believe in paying cash. We also stay away from unnecessary temptations.

The last time we bought a Starbucks latte was two years ago.

Our daughter was complaining about how they never have any money. I pointed out, that she and her husband buy three lattes each everyday!
I told her to add it up yearly. She did, and nearly passed out. They have stopped buying them. Their annual income is over $145,000 a year...and they are strapped. They are living above their realistic needs.
Two car payments...
A huge mortgage....
things for child;
Private school...
Piano lessons...
Ballet lessons...
Horse riding lessons...

plus the cost of
Two show dogs...

Designer clothes for everyone...
Four meals a week out, never cheap...

plus all the little incidentals that add up weekly.

We wish that they would live differently, but, they are nearly 40 year old adults. Can't very well tell them what to do! They are like so many others their age! They want it all, NOW! And of course, the best, top brand names to boot.

reply to post by undo


You're losing me on these standard of living laws, I no longer live in the US so I'm not aware of any such regulation. Who defines what a good standard of living is, what are those standards and which laws enforce those standards?

middle class people were the only people that could afford payments on those types of things. that's because they had jobs that paid middle class wages.

The middle classes could not afford those things, if they could they would not need to resort to debt. I think this is the point the OP is making, and to which I agree. You seem to be reasoning debt by one's ability to make payments, while ignoring the basic fact that the reason the debt is there in the first place is because they could not afford to buy. You only need look at what people get into debt for to see that it is not (for the majority) a quality of life issue.

I'm far from rich, somewhere between poor and middle class. I have no debt. If I want to buy something I save for it and buy it. Considering I do not have cash to waste, value for money is king. Now why would I buy something on credit and pay more for it just for the privilege of having it sooner? If your logic is that you can afford it in the long term, then why would you not save over the same period then buy without the added interest? ( actually it would not take as long if you waited as you would not be paying off interest. Because people do not want to wait.

The only reason I can see people getting in debt would be to buy a property. But that's a market, you make a gamble like you do in any other market. Just don't whine when you lose.

[edit on 2-10-2009 by quackers]

and nafta drove the final nail in the coffin, i think. wasn't it nafta that let the cat out of the bag? first raise taxes for social programs, the bulk of which was tied up in bureaucracy. then create more and more alternative methods to get even more money from people, such as permits and licenses for business, that became so overpowering, mom and pop stores closed all over the nation. nafta kicks in and with the help of a few other carefully placed laws, allowed big corps to vacate the sinking ship. mom and pop was replaced by stores in which all the goods were made by slave labor in other countries.

reply to post by quackers


they bought into the idea that maintaining the semblance of success created more success, which was and still is, typically true, but now the noose is in place and it's meant to isolate out only those who have been allowed to compete in the world of success - even if only via credit. which ain't very many, in fact, it appears to be very few indeed. but ya see, they never dreamed they wouldn't be able to afford it. cause they could...at the time.

i mean when even banks start dropping off the edge of the world, you know mom ain't gonna have a store of her own and the dad won't be able to create jobs for anyone and the entire thing snowballs on itself.

reply to post by undo


Mom and pop might be out of business, and that is a shame, but the reason for that is consumerism. People want things cheap, and mass produced goods are cheap. The reason we have mass production is purely consumer driven.

In this case, and in keeping with the theme of the thread, it is the people's fault that mom and pop are going out of business.

Also, stealth taxation, while a problem, is not to blame either. The UK is the the most proficient stealth tax system in the world, yet we're hardly 3rd world.

In some areas the government will mandate certain maintenance on the homes. Those who are less able to afford the mandates may have to take out a mortgage. If they fail to do stuff like keeping their lawns mowed in some areas (just an example) then some have had their homes condemned for blight. I'm sure others have heard of examples.

Where I used to live in VA there was a case where this woman had three kids with her husband. The husband ran out on her and didn't help support the kids. The sewage system backed up in her home and the town condemned it and burned it down. The state took her kids away. No one would help her who was able to help her. She had no money for an attorney to fight to get her kids back, and with no home to live in couldn't get them back anyway. I do not know what happened to her. Last I heard she had not got her kids back.