<![CDATA[American consumer debt eclipsed $2 trillion for the first time in history. We’re spending our children’s birthright, not their inheritance.
“It’s a huge problem,” warns Howard S. Dvorkin, president and founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services Inc., a nonprofit debt-management organization. “You cannot be the wealthiest country in the world and have all your countrymen be up to their neck in debt.”
Robert D. Manning, a leading expert on the credit card industry, sees families as likely to come under even greater stress as interest rates — currently near historic lows — inevitably rise.
“That’s one of the trends that’s really going to kill the American consumer in the next downturn,” he says. “It’s just impossible to keep these interest rates this low for much longer.”
Tied to the record consumer debt levels has been a surge in personal bankruptcies, which reached an all-time high of 1.6 million households in 2003.
In its latest statistical release on consumer credit, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday that consumer debt reached $2.004 trillion on a non-seasonally adjusted basis in November, the latest reporting period.
We should be ashamed of this generation’s record of leadership, as it is all going the wrong direction.]]>