If my tax rate weren't exceeding 50% I could become debt free before I'm 50! Everyone wants to blame everything but the source of the problem. Continually growing government taxation, taking bigger chunks of income (corporate and private) is driving our economic spending power into the ground.
Add to that the "keep up with the Jones'" attitude of many, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Don't tell anyone. This will be our little secret.
Voluntary indenture it may be, but slavery it's not. Problem is, we've been taught by the liberal leftists societal engineers to ignore taking person responsibility for our behaviors.
Roger Jolly??? ROTFLMAO!!!
Quite a melancholy view. Noticeably short on facts and figures, though. Here's a few items I scratched from the latest Business Week article on the economy:
From the Mortgage Bankers Association: past due mortgages are at a ten year low.
From the Federal Reserve, the financial obligations ratio, ie payments for mortgages and other installment debt as a percentage of aftertax income, has fallen from last quarter and also from the same date two years ago. The ratio of income required for non-mortgage debt has dropped from 6.62% to 5.83%, a nine-year low.
Delinquency rates for auto loans, leases, and personal loans have declined sharply in the last three years, according to the authors, and delinquencies on revolving credit, including bank cards, has edged downward over the past year.
Business expansion has resulted in a 6% growth in wages and salaries over the last year, the fastest pace in four years.
All is not lost.
If I played the violin maybe I could make a few bucks by getting a gig playing at one of these "woe is me" pity parties.
One can only be free when one is free of debt. Otherwise, you are a slave.
When I say free of debt, I'm generally not talking about a mortgage on one's home unless you own more on the home than what it is worth.
But for people who are mortgaged to the hilt, have car payments AND credit card payments, as well as "equity loans" and such, well, you really need to ask yourself just who you are working for.
And for everyone who wants to get rid of those evil "federal reserve notes", I will take them off your hands FREE of charge! I know it is aweful generous of me.
With the exception of the odd case where some health emergency caused someone to be financially ruined, most people with large amounts of debt (especially of the higher interest variety) have only themselves to blame. They fail to comprehend basic financial concepts, and cannot grasp how cash flow works. Rich Dad, Poor Dad 101 ....
BTTT
I owe no one anything. I paid off my mortgage, paid cash for my cars and pay off the credit card balance every time I use it. It is really liberating to live within one's means. About twice a week I get a call from a debt consolidation company. Occassionally I've played along until they ask me what my current balance is. When I tell them ZERO they sound like eunuchs at an orgy. They have no idea how to deal with an American who has no debt. One of them asked me how I do it. I told her I never spend more than I earn.
Poor and hungary has never a docile made. As Adam Smith wrote: Power corrupts, absolutel poverty corrupts absolutely.
Fat and lazy with a disposable income don't start revolutions, poor and hungry do.
This is a joke. I hope no one is buying into this pap. We have it better now than anyone has ever had it.
Something here to be learned about the "responsibility of freedom." We are made slaves, literally and figuratively, by way of our own permission.
Didn't check the link. The excerpt has some truth in it, even if it is a little shrill...
A load of crap. Sounds like the 'fiat money' spiel of the goldbugs.