Makes perfect sense. A deadbeat owes more than he can pay back, knows he is facing bankrupcy (a free pass) and has some left on his cards. Max them out before they get pulled makes perfect sense. The fact that they are deadbeats doesn’t mean they are stupid. They have spent their entire lives gaming the system.
But I can also testify that doing so IS WELL WORTH THE PAIN needed to get there.
In terms of material consumption, I'm now living under dramatically lower standards of living than just a little over a year ago, but I've never felt so free in my entire adult life. I didn't realize I was living as a debt slave in an illusion created by borrowed money until I shook off the shackles.
We now have a tiny home mortgage that is less than the second mortgage was on our previous home. Yes, it's a smaller, more modest home than the suburban McMansion prison we lived in the before, but we're much happier here.
Having rid ourselves of a massive debt burden (both mortgage and credit card), I'm amazed now to see how we can live on 1/4 of our previous income with some additional judicious frugality. I wish more people would learn to bite the bullet and shun debt on their own, rather than have it forced upon them.
People also need to realize that their debt is effectively enslaving them directly to the ruling political class of our federal government, who now owns the income streams from most all interest-bearing debt instruments.
… confirming that the average American is actually hyperleveraging to the point where all available credit is forcefully eliminated by a lender institution!
Guess I’m not an “average American”.
I am paying down debt, I have stopped buying anything but groceries and booze. It hasn’t been exactly “voluntary”, I just realized that I had everything I wanted. Over the last 2 years I’ve bought a new laptop to replace one that died. I traded in my 13 year old Chevy for a 5 year old Chrysler in mint condition and very low mileage. That car payment is my only debt.
I now find myself with disposable income. For the first time in my life I actually have a sizable (to me) savings account at my credit union. I’ve even managed to buy a few ounces of gold and silver.
To President 0bama: I apologize for not buying more consumer goods and stimulating the economy – but I can’t think of anything to buy.
ff
I don’t think people are wildly spending just to run up debt, except in rare occasions. They have lost income and using credit cards to live on until they are cut off. Furthermore, every person I know has cut way back on spending and debt accumulation. My group of acquaintances cannot be all that different. Banks are aggressively reducing lending lines to cusomers, even good ones. It should not matter to people deleveraging.
During the Democrats' push for the tyrannical power move which they labeled "health care reform," Sen. Baucus said proudly: "It is a shift, a leveling . . . ."
America's liberty and prosperity for over 200 years was based on another idea. Under the Founders' ideas of liberty, earnings of hardworking citizens were protected from the coercive hand of government by a written Constitution which did not allow the Baucuses, Obamas, Pelosis and Reids of the world such "taking" power.
Hear Samuel Adams:
"Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams
And:
“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.” - Samuel Adams
Some Americans finally are seeing that so-called "progressive" policies are ruining the American dream, destroying the Creator's gift of liberty for individuals, and setting the nation on a plunge into bankruptcy. They may now respond to positive statements of fundamental principles, because, as in 1776 and 1787, those principles are "self-evident." The principles must be articulated clearly, however.