@TheDawn This post summarizes my pov: The fact that only 35% pay their credit balance in full confirms that the way you use it is not the general rule but the exception. So don't minimize the number of Americans that got/get in financial trouble because of generous credit card supply. 46% need at least one year to pay off the balance. In other words these people spent money they don't have. They need one year or longer to recover financially from the gap in their budget. For these people credit cards are the road to bankruptcy. They have no advantages at all from having a credit card.
Anyway, a wifely tale back in the 90s. Japanese credit card ABS was the best performing asset. Men spent money lavishly in strip clubs and golf entertainments, etc, and defaulted on payments. The bankers got collection agencies went to their houses and to tell the wives, bingo, full payments. Then of course, loan sharks were making good unsecured returns.
This is misleading. At any one time when you take a survey, there will always be people carrying a balance, whether intentionally or because they missed a payment. This is no indication of anything especially the cause of financial trouble of Americans. I myself have carried balances (when there are promotional offers) and missed payments but I am not in any financial trouble, I assure you. Again you are extrapolating. Just because people are taking longer time to pay off credit card debts doesn't mean they are necessarily having financial trouble or not able to pay. They might be doing it on purpose because they are earning a higher rate of return than the interest rate they are incurring. Credit cards can be used as a method of financing you know that? You can get promotional offers from credit card issuers where the interest rate is much lower than the 20% regular rate and people might be taking advantage of that to save money to earn a better rate of return elsewhere. You can't be looking at statistics and drawing conclusions based on them without knowing the reason behind the statistics. I think Europe is just set up differently without an elaborate and in-depth credit card structure as in North America so no offense, but its views and exploration of the credit cards in terms of its functions and capabilities is quite limited.
"Welcome to 21st Century America"- clearly someone is still stuck in mid 20th Century America when credit was not as overwhelmingly overflowing, as well as their naivete to what other countries/economies decide is best for them. But thanks especially of late to artificially FED induces ZIRP almost everyone is partaking.
not when you have a gang outside the house to shame the family, indebtedness is not something of comfort for most of the people.
Oh yes I forgot indebtedness is like a huge deal in Asian cultures especially if you got indebted for things like strip club expenses.
OMG!!! This is DISASTERS waiting to happen. Instant transfer = instant hacking. In a country where an entire oil pipeline network can be brought to its knees by a ransomware attack, and the only way to neutralize the attack was just to pay up, this instant payment system is an open invitation for attack. I can just see hackers all around the world scurrying around and gearing up. And they are using it to transfer millions of $$'s between companies. OMG!! &facepalm* China, are you listening?? Forget about attacking Equifax, this is free money right here, one shot and there is your 5% GDP growth!!