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Consumers Use Credit Cards for Necessities as Inflation Cuts U.S. Incomes

There aren't jobs right now, and in the long term, there won't be jobs because we are outsourcing everything. Why doesn't the TP address that and focus on making this nation an exporter again, instead of an importer?

well, the TP is a bit diffuse on trade issues, but I would suggest two alternatives: 1. it's not the TP that's blocking free trade agreements - it's the unions and 2. the notion of a trade imbalance in produced goods is incredibly flawed in a post-industrial society.

Furthermore, take a ficking poll. How many people do you seriously think love the idea of capable people just sitting on welfare and collecting money?

love? eh. will accept? that's a different number. fired from my $75K job as a middle manager, I'm not about to take some entry-level busboy position; and the state aid helps me avoid such.

It's really a none issue. NOBODY wants to support welfare bums, and yet, the ****ing TP acts like it's the problem of the century.

You're preaching to the choir, and yet you probably think otherwise because it's just conservative scapegoating and distracting.... you vs the lazy bums, right?

I am less concerned about lazy bums than I am about the long term survival of America's economy.

then you should be concerned about the lazy bums. specifically the ones that don't want to save for their own retirement or increased healthcare costs.
 
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Иосиф Сталин;1059673048 said:
Fifth, make a goddamn budget. Do you know math? Well, take a book and learn to add and subtract. If you earn $1,800 a month, you cannot spend more than that. Got it? Want me to make you a drawing?

My advice? Unless you are a recent college graduate or have just entered the work force, or if you have found your 'dream job' at that pay scale, if you earn $1,800 a month, find something that pays more. That's $23,400 a year.

If you have been in the working world for some time and make at or below that figure, ignore this poster's advice and take out a student loan, then apply for college the minute you finish reading this post.
 
if you are in the workforce for some time and still making below that, it is unlikely that you are the kind of person who will succeed at college. adding on extra debt only to become part of the large segment of Americans who drop out would therefore be exceedingly foolish.
 
The cool thing about credit cards, I guess due to that market being so competitive, is that you can get handfuls of them when you have a piss-poor credit rating. Max out a few of them and your mailbox will be stuffed with pre-qualified cards on a daily basis. Then you just get new cards to pay the minimum due on the maxed out cards. Think of it like the economical workings of our great country.

When the great depression hit in 1929, people didn't have credit cards. They actually had to go without clothing, food, and shelter. Can we even imagine that? Actual suffering occurred when those folks didn't have a job. That is so last millennium.

Be American: charge it! Then the banks that back the cards can make lots of money while you live off of their loans to you. We should have contests to see who can max out the most cards. Maybe even make it into a game show. Welcome to Drastic Fantastic Plastic. Do you have what it takes to break the bank?

Credit card bubble.

Remember that name, When the majority of Americans tell the credit card companies "Consider yourself burnt", the house of cards goes down hard.
 
Lots of good points made everywhere here... Don't have the time to respond to all individually, though I'd like to.

Consumers in the U.S. are increasingly using credit cards to pay for basic necessities as income gains fail to keep pace with rising food and fuel prices.

Consumers Use Credit Cards for Necessities as Inflation Cuts U.S. Incomes - Bloomberg
But bernanke told us that inflation wasn't going to be a big deal.

The middle class who used to rely on their homes as savings have seen their home value plummet to where their mortgages are higher than worth of their houses..

If the mortgage is more than the value of the house, especially if the lost value is more then the amount you have in principal, it's in better interest to consider walking away...

This is the lowest Ive ever seen the middleclass in my lifetime, the worst postion they have ever been in...and the teaparty keeps RAGING how they need to rip the genitals off public workers and Abolish social security and medicare...

This is the most disgusting display of greed in my lifetime also...and I pray it all backfires and blowsup in their faces.. This is truly dispicable

The middle class is literally paying into their own slavery... Not with chains, but bound with debts that can never be repaid.

This is going to come to a head in a much more intense way than during the great depression... Back then most people had a level of integrity and morals that people today simply do not appreciate. Today people will literally trample each other for a 40% off sale for toys.

It's time that Americans grow up, take responsibility, and start working with each other and lose this "dog eat dog" mentality that's developing.
 
to the extent that it is, the single determinant factor seems to be the breakdown of the family. as we move more and more into single-parent households, those are the households that, demographically, drop out of the middle and upper middle quintiles. and their pay has indeed gone up.

That does not seem right to me. Got a source to back that up or did you just pull that out of thin air?
 
You know, Mickey, there used to be a time when it was almost impossible to get a credit card. It took me years because I was a poor student and I had moved a lot in a 7-8 year span. Now, credit card companies make it a point to have their people on university campuses to solicit customers. Why? Because they make more in interest from those who do pay at least the minimum, than those who default. So in this case, risk is much more profitable to credit card companies (does this sound familiar? If not, look into what happened when Wall Street crashed).

When it comes to credit cards, Visa is absolutely delighted at the customers that simply pay the minimum every month. For instance, if someone bought a $700 washing machine on credit, and paid the minimum ever month, the machine can cost something ridiculous like $10,000 by the time it’s fully paid off. And many people do get caught in that trap.

There also used to be a time where many were turned down for mortgages. When I worked in the high tech sector, I could not get one because even though I made good coin, my job was volatile.

Why is it different now? We must be asking ourselves that question.
 
Back around 1980, department stores, grocery stores, and general stores decided that they would not accept your personal check unless you produced a photo ID and a major credit card. That alone accounted for millions of people getting cards that prior to that time never even wanted one. All of a sudden everyone had a credit card, which of course led to being accepted for even more credit cards. Laws have since been passed that make the stores take your check without seeing a credit card, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

And like you stated, millions of people making high interest only minimum payments will allow the banks to handle many defaults. The rates are so bad that loan sharks had to raise theirs just to keep up.
 
There also used to be a time where many were turned down for mortgages. When I worked in the high tech sector, I could not get one because even though I made good coin, my job was volatile.

Why is it different now? We must be asking ourselves that question.
For credit cards, a big part of it was accessibility to computers and massive consumer databases. With the right algorithm, they could reduce risk and maximize profit by targeting people with financial histories suggesting they were responsible enough not to default, but not so responsible that they didn't carry a balance.
 
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The tea party has been pressuring Obama since they were elected to follow through on his promise to double exports. Unfortunately for them, Obama, and the rest of the country, the democrat party won't act because of pressure from the unions.


Well, duh. As is often the case, the issue is not whether to do something but how to go about it.

And how is the TP exactly pressuring Obama, by union busting? Unions want to protect their jobs, not destroy their jobs. It isn't in anybody's economic interest to destroy their economic utility, which is why this argument makes zero sense to anybody who understands economics. Individuals seek to maximize their utility, not destroy it.

A union will fight to keep a job here, before they would logically destroy their economic self interest and their nation's economy.

Everything is the fault of the lazy and the unions, right?

This is exactly why I said the TP is the conservative trend of the moment and is ignorance. You're not saying anything new... same old message on steroids.
 
living on credit cards is stupid. just like getting an adjustable rate mortgage on a house you can't afford, and then taking out a second mortgage to serve as the downpayment for a vacation home is stupid. We've become an instant-gratification culture, and it's made us do very, very stupid things. like live on credit cards.



which must have been why Nov 2010 was such a banner election for Democrats...

Opinions are like assholes... Arguing over how to properly judge people is a waste of time, and I personally am not interested in hearing your opinion or anybody else's... :shrug:
 
Well, duh. As is often the case, the issue is not whether to do something but how to go about it.

I don't hear people going about it at all... The last time a president really did much about welfare reform was Clinton. People don't campaign on it, and you didn't even offer up solutions yourself, just rhetoric which btw... nobody has any issues with what you said. Yes, there are cycles of dependency, people aren't helping themselves, welfare is a failure in that sense... It's a pretty common and widely held attitude. :shrug:
 
That does not seem right to me. Got a source to back that up or did you just pull that out of thin air?

A lot of things boil down to the breakdown of the family structure to him... He is mad that some people don't even want to have kids, because he thinks white, Christian American babies are culturally superior.
 
You know, Mickey, there used to be a time when it was almost impossible to get a credit card. It took me years because I was a poor student and I had moved a lot in a 7-8 year span. Now, credit card companies make it a point to have their people on university campuses to solicit customers. Why? Because they make more in interest from those who do pay at least the minimum, than those who default. So in this case, risk is much more profitable to credit card companies (does this sound familiar? If not, look into what happened when Wall Street crashed).

When it comes to credit cards, Visa is absolutely delighted at the customers that simply pay the minimum every month. For instance, if someone bought a $700 washing machine on credit, and paid the minimum ever month, the machine can cost something ridiculous like $10,000 by the time it’s fully paid off. And many people do get caught in that trap.

There also used to be a time where many were turned down for mortgages. When I worked in the high tech sector, I could not get one because even though I made good coin, my job was volatile.

Why is it different now? We must be asking ourselves that question.

This is definitely true. It's the same with those quick loan places... when the recession first hit, those places made a killing and business went way up. As long as the poor keeps living on credit, they'll keep falling further into poverty. It's very sad, but people have to eat and buy groceries some way.
 
Prior to this recession, it was presumed by many, middle class, wall street, and corporations alike, that wealth was ever increasing. They would simply be more and more money as time went by. Everyone borrowed money assuming that they would be able to pay it off later. That was the real impact of the housing crash and the recession. Suddenly, no one knew how they were going to pay off their debt. Millions lost their homes, not just because they had taken the subprime (a soft way of saying "ripoff") mortgages, but because they had been betting on a financial system that turned out not to work. Are these people lazy and stupid for believing what they were told? Of course not.

The issue at hand is that many are still in debt, and many have lost their life savings to pay off the debt they had. It is not so easy to escape this situation, especially with so many losing their jobs, their homes, their savings... And the means to find a better job, an education, becomes more and more expensive. So few young people begin their careers without owing much of what they earn to some bank in exchange for the possibility of earning anything in the first place. Our whole economy was built on debt, and that fragile balance has come crashing down. It didn't used to matter who had all the wealth, because we all operated on fictional money. Now the fake money is gone, and everyone needs the real wealth to live.

Don't be so quick to judge those in need. It's not just paying the rent today that's a challenge. It's saving for retirement, sending children to a good enough school so that they can perhaps escape the debt trap. We've built a bad system, and now we're paying for it. And unfortunately, those who are paying are those least able to do so.
 
Prior to this recession, it was presumed by many, middle class, wall street, and corporations alike, that wealth was ever increasing. They would simply be more and more money as time went by. Everyone borrowed money assuming that they would be able to pay it off later.
Yep. The borrowing binge began in the mid 90's at the start of the housing boom. With low interest rates and surging home prices, people had no qualms taking out equity loans to fill their homes with furniture and appliances, or to purchase $40,000 SUVs on tax deductable interest -- the thinking of course being that home prices would continue to go up (and by no means would ever go down). This of course continued up until the recession. As home prices rose even more sharply after 2000, consumers were quick to match by assuming more debt... then boom, homes dropped tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the span of a year.

Are these people lazy and stupid for believing what they were told? Of course not.
I wouldn't say they are stupid people, but they sure made some stupid financial choices. Some people were simply naive, whereas others were savvy but willingly took risks, like moving from hot spot to hot spot trying to flip properties for six-figure profits. If people are going to "believe what they're told," they ought to be careful who they listen to. There were plenty of newspapers, magazines, consumer advocates, and news segments waving red flags.

And unfortunately, those who are paying are those least able to do so.
Unfortunately, we're all paying for it, whether or not we made the right decisions.
 
And how is the TP exactly pressuring Obama, by union busting? Unions want to protect their jobs, not destroy their jobs. It isn't in anybody's economic interest to destroy their economic utility, which is why this argument makes zero sense to anybody who understands economics. Individuals seek to maximize their utility, not destroy it.
I have no idea what you're talking about... no idea what argument you think makes zero sense, no idea why you think the tea party is union busting... anything.

A union will fight to keep a job here, before they would logically destroy their economic self interest and their nation's economy.
In believing the President's export initiative will bring about such an outcome, they are at odds with Obama, some congressional democrats, most congressional republicans (including those associated with the tea party) and Bill Clinton.

Everything is the fault of the lazy and the unions, right?
Everthing is the faul.... what??

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