Reply #72: I'd agree with most of that. [View All]

[Frodo]

One point I would make, however - from a personal finance standpoint - is the difference between "secured" and "unsecured" debt. $10,000 owed on a credit card is far worse than $20,000 owed on a $22,000 car. So those credit cards are the big problem... and it may be worse than people think because you can put off the problem by transfering balances from one card to another.

Back in the day when I had some debt (right after getting married) we once went five months without making a payment, not because we didn't have the money, but because we kept getting offers to transfer the money for free (or better than free - with a cash rebate) to a different card. Having all those cards probably DID dent our otherwise clean credit report for a few months, but you get the picture. If we WERE having financial problems... the reckoning could be put off for a significant period of time.

Some of this is also alleviated by the rise in property values and the low mortgage rates.