Americans in debt

Many a story bemoans how half the American public cannot put enough coin together today if faced with an emergency exceeding $400.

Sounds downright scary? It is. For a rich country and by its own marketing the largest superpower in the world, this glaring stat reads incongruent with what might appear logical.

Here is my personal take on where the train went off the rails. Behaviors manipulated by media and marketing observed in everyday life reveal some obvious scams designed to sell/buy more than one might afford or need -

Sense of entitlement (among variety of demographic) - wanting things one cannot afford but lets buyer look Insta worthy

Retail Therapy - that shopping is sold alongside the myriad cocktails of legal drugs to the unsuspecting and uneducated masses as being therapeutic - really?

Buy bigger - brands from large home improvement stores to auto companies actually touting the notion that bigger is better flies in the face of talk show hosts and other financial wizard sleazeballs trying to advise one to downsize (anecdotally I have observed that the larger the SUV on the road the shorter the lone driver in the vehicle)

Low low rates - an entire system designed to make borrowing appear as a panacea for what ails the consumer - net result no savings.

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