The debt trap
There’s an interesting article in yesterdays New York Times about American debt, complete with interactive features and debt calculators to compare your debt load to others: Given a shovel, Americans Dig Deeper into Debt.
Years of spending more than they earn have left a record number of Americans like Ms. McLeod standing at the financial precipice. They have amassed a mountain of debt that grows ever bigger because of high interest rates and fees.
While the circumstances surrounding these downfalls vary, one element is identical: the lucrative lending practices of America’s merchants of debt have led millions of Americans — young and old, native and immigrant, affluent and poor — to the brink. More and more, Americans can identify with miners of old: in debt to the company store with little chance of paying up.
It is not just individuals but the entire economy that is now suffering. Practices that produced record profits for many banks have shaken the nation’s financial system to its foundation. As a growing number of Americans default, banks are recording hundreds of billions in losses, devastating their shareholders.
There’s a meme in the local media that Canadians are more financially conservative than Americans, and while that may certainly be true I wonder about Vancouverites specifically – With our negative savings rate, relatively low incomes and high housing costs are the residents of this city really that different from some of the more extreme US cases?
July 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
No I don't have an assignment at Woodwards, I wish I did as they're worth quite a bit more then they were purchased for.
Like I said earlier wait 5yrs and then report back.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:58 am
it used to be that you could make mistakes when you were young but it wasn't so extremely destructive. Now with companies begging you to take their credit cards, a young person can literally rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt… It's wrong and something should be put in place to not allow it… Middle aged plus people that rack up that kind of dept, tough you should have thought about it before you maxed out all your cards…
July 24th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Time, Krrish, whoever
Do you really think that the W is part of Gastown and not the DTES? I suppose that explains a lot about you. If you thought there was a profit to be had in green skies you'd believe the sky was green too.