The American Dream
Jul 23rd 2008greenbucksBusiness & Current Events & Money Watch & World Watch
A lot of people aim for “The American Dream”.
What is exactly the American Dream?
Living in the suburbs, having one or two cars, vacation, shopping sprees, credit cards and other luxurious and comfortable ways to live. These are good to do as long as one can afford to pay for all of this. What if one can’t pay for all of these?
But this scenario is changing.
They are losing their homes and their cars. The American government even gave out tax rebates. Fannie Mae, the largest mortgage buyer and Freddy Mac, the second largest mortgage buyer were given emergency rescue plans.
Women who used to be in the workforce are not working anymore. Banks are reporting billions of losses.
This is being forecasted as the “death” of the middle class.
Americans as well as the British are deep in debts and there is more to this than meets the eye.
Why does this happen? It is because they are spending more than they can afford, courtesy of the lending companies.
So what do they do? Get another credit to pay for a credit.
So who is to blame? The credit availability or the mindset of getting things that can’t be paid for in cash but through credits?
Read what happened to Diane McLeod in a NYTimes article entitled “Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt”.
May this serve as a lesson to everyone who loves charging their purchases to credit cards.
