Debt Slavery: 30 Facts About Debt In America

DEBT

When most people think about America’s debt problem, they think of the debt of the federal government. But that is only part of the story. The sad truth is that debt slavery has become a way of life for tens of millions of American families. Over the past several decades, most Americans have willingly allowed themselves to become enslaved to debt. These days, most of us are busy either going into even more debt or paying off the debt that we have accumulated in the past. When your finances are dominated by debt, it makes it really hard to ever get ahead. Incredibly, 43 percent of all American families spend more than they earn each year.

Debt is a major issue.
Not only in the US because it seems that allmost every country in the world is in debt.
how that is even possible is beyond me, but that's another topic.

Because the truth is that the American people need a wake up call. Consumer borrowing rose by another $19.3 billion in December. Right now it is sitting at a grand total of $2.5 trillion according to the Federal Reserve.

again this is NOT only Americans.
everybody needs to wake up and fast!
the article just happens to deal with the situation in the US.
so let's continue please.

We always criticize the federal government for going into so much debt, but we rarely criticize ourselves for our own addiction to debt. Debt slavery is destroying millions of lives all across this country, and it is imperative that we educate the American people about the dangers of all this debt.

ain't that the truth.
i, for one, am guilty of blaming governemts but yet fail to look at myself.
for instance i just finished my education and still need to pay back 6000 euros.
so technically i'm in debt as well.

but let's get to the facts.

#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.
source

#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.
source

#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.

ehm what!?

#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.
source

#5 For households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799.
source

#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
source

#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.
source

#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.
source

#9 There is one credit card company out there, First Premier, that charges interest rates of up to 49.9 percent. Amazingly, First Premier has 2.6 million customers.
source

these are just the first 9.
i garantee there are far more shocking ones.
but i don't want to post them all because i'm affraid my thread might get deleted.

visit this link for the remaining facts and the source article

This could also be added to this topic. Add your personal debt to the national debt per citizen and that is your total
liability.
nationaldebtclocks.com...

Americans are trained like dogs to spend money they don't have and buy things they don't need. A lot of individuals' debts are their own faults for being so naive and gullible, some folks' debts are not their faults and I do feel sorry for them, but the majority of Americans are begging for the slavery they are in.

People don't own their possessions, their possessions own them.

I re-read the list again.

Absolutely mindnumbing figures.

I'm now sear hing figures and articles for my own country.

Help is appreciated!

EU, Netherlands

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Only Americans?

Planned Obsolescence is part of every modern consumer based economy.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by JibbyJedi

 

Only Americans?

Planned Obsolescence is part of every modern consumer based economy.

edit on 10-2-2012 by RealSpoke because: (no reason given)

I can only speak about what I personally observe, I'm sure it's global but I can't comment on what I haven't seen myself in other countries.

It drives me nuts that people say you should always hold at least $50 of debt on your card like it's a good thing.

Originally posted by ALIENslave
It drives me nuts that people say you should always hold at least $50 of debt on your card like it's a good thing.

never heard this before, maybe it´s just me.

but what is the reasoning behind this?

reply to post by kn0wh0w


It builds your credit faster when if you hold something on your card.
If you just use it then pay it off your not really using the credit.

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 10 Feb 2012 at 10:02:13 PM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 312,201,426

so each citizen's share of this debt is $49,198.45.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$3.98 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

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WHO gets to pay this off ??

reply to post by xuenchen


Nobody will ever pay that off.
It will only get bigger.

I got into trouble once with credit. Valuable lesson. Now if I can't pay for it, I don't buy it. I do think that layaway is a good option for those bigger ticket items. We are in a big mess, no question.