Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
Yeah, considering a guy like me with what is pretty much a high school education has managed to keep my self well below these so called national averages, it totally makes sense that the rest of the population who make a better income and have a better level of education on average would be so much worse off.
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I don't think it's about education or even income levels at all. I personally know some well-educated high earning investment bankers and corporate finance guys that drive luxary cars and live in large expensive houses that they cannot realistically afford long term. Also what about people with degrees and experience in fields completely unrelated to money. You wouldn't believe the ignorance of financial knowledge and action in many 'smart' people. The larger the income the larger the debts that can serviced. That's all that means.
Personally I think it's just simply part of the human condition to screw tomorrow and live for today. The readily expandable amount of debt products just enabled people to lever up more. There's also an acceptance of defaulting on debt in younger generations that did not exist in the WWII generation. My grandparents used to say that back in the day writing an NSF cheque used to be a lifetime of embarassment. I helped my dad volunteer for a Little League baseball association by collecting and cashing cheques for league fees and such and the NSF rate had to be like 5-10%. Seriously 5-10% of cheques written by people in upper middle class nieghborhoods didn't have like $80 in their chequeing accounts! Also we had some people remedy the situation by just writing me a new cheque knowing that it wouldn't clear either. No shame!