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posted by martyb on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-owe,-I-owe,-it's-off-to-work-I-go dept.

Another day, another record broken.

The debt held by US households has surpassed its pre-2008 record, several financial outlets note. A peculiar spotlight in the associated numbers falls on student loans, where delinquencies are multiple times higher than for other debt types: 10 percent is the norm.

That's some pretty troubling news for the economy [and wider society], notes Rana Foroohar at sister outlet the Financial Times. First off, there's the association between the rise in student debt, and a decrease in home ownership for young people. This connection is exacerbated by them millennials increasingly turning towards income-based repayment programmes, which spread out the debt over more years.

Secondly, the level of student debt delinquencies ain't changing: the 10 percent figure is a near-constant over the past 4-5 years. People who've ever had a delinquency -- even if they recover -- have a much lower rate of home ownership at age 30 as compared to their non-defaulted compatriots. Not having a home means not filling it with stuff, and filling with stuff is kinda what the economy is based on.

Then, thirdly, it's not only students that are hit by student debt: increasingly, their parents are taking on debt too, to help out. Fuel for that debt sandwich is something peculiar: the rate of inflation in college admission costs is three times higher than the consumer price index. Must be that college professors wages have increased a lot, then.

Given that boomers and their millennial offspring are the two largest voting blocks in the US, a snappy future president-elect might consider raising the issue a bit.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 19 2017, @01:34PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 19 2017, @01:34PM (#512157) Journal

    See where I wrote another reply above that says how simple this is. We don't spend any significant time doing this. Utilities are all on auto-pay on the airline card. When buying food / fuel, we use a certain card by reflex. Anything else, we use the other card.

    Then there is the going online to pay the cards at the end of each week. We don't want that money sitting in checking account looking like it is "unspent". (We could have a separate account, or do more bookkeeping, etc to keep the money in our hands until the last possible moment, but again, we're trying to not spend time on this.)

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    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @01:50PM (2 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 19 2017, @01:50PM (#512168) Journal

    Btw.. is it possible to pay money to another credit card such that you can re-circulate plenty of money and be a "good spender" but in reality not using a dime? ;)

    Setup0)
    Card0 pays to Card1
    Withdraw as cash.

    Setup1)
    Card0 pays Card1 pays Card2 pays Card0 etc..

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 19 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 19 2017, @01:58PM (#512171) Journal

      No. It is not possible. Sadly.

      There is only one exception that I knew of, and I think it was closed off. One time, we bought a big stack of Disney Gift Cards on Target card, for 5% off face value. Then we went online to target.com to pay off the Target card, and were able to use another CC to pay it. Now that got us rewards on that other CC.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @02:37PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 19 2017, @02:37PM (#512191) Journal

        Start a shell company?
        That has a credit card linked to it..