It's getting bigger
 

£1,330,000,000,000

The above is consumer debt in the UK :o

It's far to easy taking out of these loans, let us not forget the Government told people to spend there way out of a slump and they did now look at this mess.

As of the end of 2006, the total U.S. federal public debt was $4.9 trillion.
Thats with 1,112,542 bankruptcies, down 1/3 from 2005 because of changes to the law.

USA has 5x the population though so per capita it isn't quite so bad.

Yeah. I thought about that after I posted. I'll change it a bit.

My wife and I are still in £30,000 worth of personal debt, after paying off over £1,000 a month for 3 years +. Nobody held a gun to our head and made us take out the cards/loans/HP - it was our own stupid fault. Admittedly, the banks made it easy for us, but that's their job - I really can't see how you can blame the government for this one.

lesrae,

They are only partly to blame not out right. ;)

But they did encourage all to spend there way out of recession which was just voided.

Now you see why it ha become my personal goal of having a FICA score of '0'. I'm just the otherside of 800 right now, but my future I plan to have 0 - and this is not because I plan to have bad debt, but because I plan to not ever borrow money again. Period. I might go as far as to keep a VISA around or something for convienence, but that is about it.

So far, I'm doing quite good. American Express cancelled my card on me last year due to inactivity (Hadn't used it once for about 2 years). Maybe I can continue that trend and have another card cancel out on me for the same reason before the end of this year too! :p

The logic - I have a decent income, so why should I have one penny of debt to my name? It is just plain stupid since I would simply be financing my creditors Ferrari.

-S

The current mess in debt markets is the straight result of a credit bubble.

The kind of thing you can see coming months off, but once it hits the papers it's a meltdown/crisis/Armageddon.

12 months from zero almost to the day:up::up::up:

I tell you why: for German anti-terror investigators you are fulfilling one criterion that makes you a terror suspect when you do not have a certain ammount of financial debts. I think it is like this in other countries as well. It is not normal - it is too inconspiciuous - if somebody does not have made some debts.

:lol:

That's me safe then :)
It makes suspect status quite desirable..

Me too. The credit card is a pox on the American consumer.

Well il be honest here, i am in debt i owe £5,000 on a loan and about £720 on a credit card, now im not in unmanageable debt i can afford the monthly repayments and im doing so.

Reason for the loan was to get a car pay the insurance and also have so money left to save which i did.

Main reason for taking out the loan was to build a credit history

I don't see anything wrong with owing money, as long as you're not going insane with debt.
That said, I'd rather not owe what I do today, but I know I can pay it back. :)

You both may want to rethink that...

http://www.bargaineering.com/article...ld-be-bff.html