Dateline did a report on Credit Cards and consumer debt back in March. It is really interesting. It is very easy to look at any one of the stories portrayed and say “Yeah, that was dumb”. Obviously people over extend themselves and then can’t recover from a medical problem or a job loss. It is a lot easier to feel sympathy for a person who has a medical emergency than it is for someone with an upside down mortgage, care loan, school loan plus $25,000 of CC debt — and still spending to maintain their lifestyle, but no matter how people get there the fact that it is even possible to get that far into the hole is frightening. I look at our herd’s situation and realize that we are 100% to blame for our budget woes. We are not waiting for anyone or anything to bail us out and we certainly aren’t digging any deeper at this point.
Part one:
Part two: you can view here.
The first two parts layout how easy it is for people to get into debt on CCs and the fact that we live in a consumer driven debt society is hurting us – all of us.
Parts three, four , five and six cover debt collections – seriously scum.
Seven, eight and nine are mostly talking with Elizabeth Warren about how credit collections work and what reforms she wants to see. It is interesting that Ms Warren talks about an idea that the same middle class “dream” has become inaccessible because the cost of necessities has risen faster than real income, but there has also been an expansion of wants which has fueled the debt monster.
Part ten is a brief explanation of one credit “trick” that consumers need to look out for.
1 Comment
November 9, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Great find. Great resource. Thanks for sharing. All the more reason to stay away from debt. Keep up the good work.