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Posted on 10/10/2009 3:21:06 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
The 'Democratization of Credit' Is Over -- Now It's Payback Time
By S. MITRA KALITA
NEW YORK -- Karen King owes nearly $36,000, more than she's ever earned in a year.
All day long, bill collectors call. She hunts for a second job, sometimes skips meals, and stays with other family members at a grandfather's crowded apartment, trying to get out of debt and turn her life around.
She largely holds herself at fault. "Years ago, I lived for now. It was so stupid," the 28-year-old says. "It's depressing, but I can't live that life anymore." Now, she says, "I basically want to live for the future."
The recession has forced a financial reckoning for Americans across the income spectrum. The pressure is especially acute for the low-income Americans who relied on borrowing for daily expenses or to gain the trappings of middle-class life. Shifting credit practices over several decades had enabled them to live beyond their means by borrowing nearly as readily as the more affluent.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
You are going to have to fight the governments. They don’t want people having an economic education, as they are the biggest thieves in the world.
Right from your nice little thieving town. You think the cops, teachers, road departments want citizens fishing around THEIR money, costs, spending? No. Freek’n. Way.
Big business and big government love dumb, or if not, non educated, or mis educated citizens. Sheeple. Wolves love sheep.
...and how to use English words with more than 2 syllables. They’re done a great job forming semi-literate drones, who know how to use every high-tech gadget except the ones you can earn a living with. White kids now have that “school is for other white people” attitude that destroyed black America.
To this woman’s credit, she blames herself. I’m not yet 40, and I’d been hearing for years that we weren’t going to enjoy the standard of living our parents did. They were right; we just didn’t want to hear it, and the moneylenders were happy to oblige. It was no accident that they tightened up bankruptcy eligibility a few years back; they saw the bubble coming...
Another story is that incomes have held, or maybe declined over the last twenty years. So, people are going further out on limbs. Like farmers borrowing more after bad years, thinking that next years bumper crops will pull them out. They double down.
Anyways, like we all know, the governments that tax, fine, fee, permit you, regulate you, cost you morning noon and night do not provide one single hour of finance education.
Heck, they don’t even do math hardly anymore.
Lots of kumbaya self esteem though.
bump!
I can answer you.
Kids expected to start out where their parents “ended up.”
Maybe we’re guilty of not explaining about those times when we stayed in the inlaws basement, saving up for a down payment.
These kids wake up one day, with the college degree their parents could never afford for themselves, and want to start THERE. And then move on....
Example: My sister was raised in the same home as I was. Lower middle class. We clipped coupons as a family; it was a matter of survival for us. My sister married someone wealthy, but she has never been able to abandon her upbringing, she still clips coupons and sends away for refunds. We were just raised like that.
Her daughter is one of privilige. She’s never known or heard of hard times in the family. We have (as a family) done a crappy job of educating her.
I was there to visit a couple of weeks ago, remarking that I was thinking of moving to Fort Worth. She said she’d like to live in Austin, because that’s where the liberals live.
No kidding.
(Confirming my theory that the longer the distance between the wealth “earners” and the wealth “receivers” will dictate the political bent.)
Frankly, I don't care if she's able to buy anything beyond a bottle of water again. At her financial state maybe she should start sucking up at a water fountain.
“this MUST become a classroom endeavor...”
I agree completely. It should be a requirement for graduation. On another note - they should also require a government class. It was required by my school to graduate. We learned about the branches of government, the separation of powers, etc. We even had to study the Constitution - and what it meant. I think it made my classmates and I better citizens.-—JM
“Teach about checking accounts, credit cards. Teach about why payday loans suck. Explain how credit works.”
Explaining how it works is meaningless to teenagers.
They need concrete lessons such as being forced to spend a Saturday doing demeaning boring work. On Monday, they are handed 70 dollars for their labors. Then they should have to stand in line to file past a series of tables manned by representative government agencies. At the first table, for example, the IRS takes away 20 percent, the next table, FICA, etc. Be sure to include representative property, school, and other taxes.
When they are done they will be holding twenty or so dollars for their efforts. Declare they are wealthy and take another ten percent from them for the common good. Then take the money confiscated from them and buy pizza for another class.
Of course, to be fair, offer to let them buy their own from what they have left.
I don't think the concept is anything new. Smart kids were certainly ridiculed by their peers when I went to high school some 35 years ago. It has just been taken to a new level because of lack of parent/s oversight..
This young lady made one bad decision after another.
She is not alone.
It is so sad.
Yes. My parents weren’t rich, my dad made good money but there were 5 kids to feed, so we didn’t have a lot of stuff.
It only took me a little while before I lived in a house like my parents, and when I had my kids after 10 years of earnings, we weren’t rich but we could buy anything we really wanted. That’s because we lived frugally, coupons, buying on sale, not taking expensive trips, shopping at thrift stores and yard sales, fixing things instead of buying new things.
But, my kids had anything they wanted. Expensive toys, video games, huge TV, cable, multiple computers. We drive brand-new cars (paid for, but the kids just know they aren’t clunkers).
We’ll send our kids to college, they’ll get out, and wonder why they can’t immediately buy season passes to theme parks and live in a 4-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood.
We are to blame, of course, but partly I think it’s just a cycle that’s hard to beat. If you really are rich, you pass that to your kids, and they really don’t need to ever worry about money, like the Kennedys.
But for most of us, it’s like our parents struggle, so we understand struggle, but because we live in a nation that makes it easy to succeed (or used to) our kids don’t struggle, they think it’s easy, and then they are set up to fail. Their kids will struggle, and maybe succeed, and then THEIR kids will start the cycle.
And the idle rich, mostly democrats, are trying to make sure that nobody else gets to be idle rich, by taxing inheritance, taxing businesses so it’s hard to maintain a family business, killing them with regulations.
They want everybody working for nameless corporations, so the people will hate their employers, and need government.
Bingo!
I’m no fan of Warren Buffett (sp) but I’m neither an enemy of his, either.
But I sure do understand (now) his notion of leaving NOTHING to his offspring.
You might find it helpful to borrow this icon in the future.
No offense intended, I'm on *your* side in this one.
Cheers!
Cheers!
I agree. What our children need most are not the latest technologies or even ideas. They need tools - and your suggestions are excellent ones. Our children are bright, if we give them the right tools, they will make good decisions. As it is now, we are taking these bright young people and turning them into useful idiots.-—JM
i live in NYC so yes,i understand all too well how “money stupid” people are.
Americans’ inflated sense of entitlement has gotten us to this point.
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