I can’t even fathom having $10,000 in credit card debt.  I get the shakes if I carry over a few hundred dollars for even a single month.

I realized recently why it is so hard to buy Christmas gifts these days: it is because a lot of people have everything that they want.  If they want something, they are not going to sit around and not have it: they will go off and buy it, even if that means putting it on credit.

It’s not the Christmas gifts, it’s the health insurance, or the trip to the emergency room; or your old car gives its last gasp and you need it for work; or the landlord who raises the rent; or the ex-spouse who cleans out your bank account before slipping off to Vegas; or the required prescription medication which is dropped from the list of your HMO, leaving you with the total cost; or….

Sure, some people abuse credit cards.  But it’s not that simple for the many, many working Americans who struggle to support themselves and their families in our worsening economy.

Little Cabbage…thank you.

Our “vitality” is smoke and mirrors. Credit Cards and home equity have created the illusion of economic growth in recent years in the so-called “middle class.” 

Of course, we’ll bail out Wall Street because the people who really matter reside in that world. We’ll preach “personal responsibility” to the bankrupt.

Anyone remember the S&L;bail out? Happened when we had another Bush in office and wasn’t it a Bush brother whose risky real estate schemes imperiled his Savings and Loans in Texas?

What we need is a Ralph Nader who isn’t mentally ill.

Little Cabbage,

You are correct. The big-ticket items (housing, health insurance, tuition) are vastly more expensive than they were even a decade ago.

But I am not buying houses and health insurance for Christmas gifts. I am buying DVDs, and CDs, and books, and stationary.  The people who surround me do not go without these $20 items.  If they want them badly enough, they buy them.

Credit card look very useful but its aftereffects and troubles are far more then its usefulness, credit card companies exploit there customers by charging high interested rates and extra charges.
Thanks.
Credit Card Debt