Free Republic

American credit card defaults have risen to the highest levels since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as consumers grapple with years of high inflation. Credit card lenders wrote off $46 billion in delinquent loan balances in the first three quarters of 2024, a 50 percent increase from the same period last year. These forms of write-offs are are viewed as a highly monitored measure of loan distress. This is the highest level since 2010, according to industry data gathered by BankRegData. Mark Zandi, the head of Moody’s Analytics, said, “High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of...

Yesterday I broke the current household record for war dialer phone scammer calls at 61, the previous record was Thanksgiving Day 2022 with 60. All of these calls are using forged caller IDs and basically unblockable because the numbers change every call. While I originally just ignored them, I went through the usual Lenny Bruce phases of coping, from talking to the callers (almost exclusively from India but with names like George, Ralph, Gladys and Candi) to pretending I myself was Indian or Chinese, to telling them I was going to give their call history to IBI. All that happened...