The Wrong Road?

[Sukerkin]

I have been saying for a few years here at MT that the American economy in particular is on very shaky ground as it is fundamentally funded by debt. The consequences of such a system are easily witnessed, for you tend to find that growth goes to service the debt rather than benefit the population by genuine investment and job creation.

Here's a brief BBC video article that tells the tale very clearly:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14678859

Ihttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14678859'd be interested in seeing something similar for the UK. All I can say is that, despite a period of great growth in the 'money' in our GDP, my personal financial position is that I am 30% worse off in real terms than I was ten years ago.

 

[Flying Crane]

All I can say is, I'm currently working on refinancing my house, getting a better interest rate and cutting it to 15 years from 30. I believe we can make the payments well enough, we will save some $120,000 in interest over the life of the loan, and paying it off in 15 years means we get 15 years of our lives back (minus the 2 and 1/2 we've already paid).

I hate living with debt, even a mortgage. The car is paid for, our schooling is paid for, we pay off the credit cards in full every month. I hate paying interest. I hate having the obligation hanging over my head.

How "Un-American" of me. Aren't we all supposed to run on debt forever?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I hate living with debt, even a mortgage. The car is paid for, our schooling is paid for, we pay off the credit cards in full every month. I hate paying interest. I hate having the obligation hanging over my head.

I agree, I can't stand debt

How "Un-American" of me. Aren't we all supposed to run on debt forever?

:hmm: Maybe that is why my wife (who is Chinese) tells even her Chinese friends I'm Chinese... So I guess I'm a 6'1" tall blond Chinese guy

 

[Sukerkin]

This is taken from another, unrelated, article on the BBC:

"Money is not everything but it is a pretty close match for class. And in the past 30 years, the income gap has widened.

GDP doubled since 1978, but only the top 10% saw incomes grow at or above that rate, twice as fast as the median and four times faster than the bottom 10%.
As Universities Minister David Willetts has honestly acknowledged: "Western societies with less mobility are the ones with less equality too."

When the income gap is wide, few cross the class divide, so remedies may lie less in schools than in the society they reflect.

As epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson tells us: "Boosting social mobility without addressing income inequality is like trying to diet without worrying about calories."

I particularly like that last analogy . Simple and succinct.

Here's the article in full and I shall be looking out for the associated radio programme on the iPlayer soon:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14721315