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When most people think about America's debt problem, they think of the debt of the federal government. But that is only part of the story. The sad truth is that debt slavery has become a way of life for tens of millions of American families. Over the past several decades, most Americans have willingly allowed themselves to become enslaved to debt. These days, most of us are busy either going into even more debt or paying off the debt that we have accumulated in the past. When your finances are dominated by debt, it makes it really hard to ever get ahead. Incredibly, 43 percent of all American families spend more than they earn each year. Even while median household income continues to decline (now less than $50,000 a year), median household debt continues to go up. According to the Federal Reserve, median household debt in America has risen to $75,600. Many Americans spend decades caught in the trap of debt slavery. Large numbers of them never even escape at all and die in debt. It can be a lot of fun to spend lots of money and go into lots of debt, but it can be absolutely soul crushing to toil and labor for years paying off those debts while making others wealthy in the process. Hopefully this article will inspire many people to try to escape the chains of debt slavery once and for all. 

Because the truth is that the American people need a wake up call. Consumer borrowing rose by another $19.3 billion in December. Right now it is sitting at a grand total of $2.5 trillion according to the Federal Reserve.

Overall, consumer debt in America has increased by a whopping 1700% since 1971.

We always criticize the federal government for going into so much debt, but we rarely criticize ourselves for our own addiction to debt.

Debt slavery is destroying millions of lives all across this country, and it is imperative that we educate the American people about the dangers of all this debt.

The following are 30 facts about debt in America that will absolutely blow your mind....

Credit Card Debt

#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.

#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.

#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.

#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.

#5 For households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799.

#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.

#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.

#9 There is one credit card company out there, First Premier, that charges interest rates of up to 49.9 percent. Amazingly, First Premier has 2.6 million customers.

Auto Loan Debt

#10 The length of auto loans in America just keeps getting longer and longer. If you can believe it, 45 percent of all new car loans being made today are for more than 6 years.

#11 Approximately 70 percent of all car purchases in the United States involve an auto loan.

#12 A subprime auto loan bubble is steadily building. Today, 45 percent of all auto loans are made to subprime borrowers. At some point that is going to be a massive problem.

Mortgage Debt

#13 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#14 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.

#15 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

#16 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.

#17 According to Dylan Ratigan, 46 percent of all mortgaged properties in Florida are underwater, 50 percent of all mortgaged properties in Arizona are underwater and 63 percent of all mortgaged properties in Nevada are underwater.

#18 Overall, nearly 29 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States are underwater.

#19 If you can believe it, the mortgage lenders now have more equity in U.S. homes than the American people do.

Medical Debt

#20 Medical debt is a major problem for a growing number of Americans. One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#21 Sadly, the number of Americans that are protected by health insurance continues to decline. An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.

#22 But even if you do have health insurance, there is still a good chance that you could end up with huge medical debt problems. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.

Student Loan Debt

#23 Total student loan debt in the United States is rapidly approaching 1 trillion dollars.

#24 If you went out right now and starting spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#25 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt.

#26 The average student loan debt load is now approximately $25,000.

#27 After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.

#28 One survey found that 23 percent of all college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.

#29 The student loan default rate has nearly doubled since 2005.

#30 Student loans made to directly to parents have increased by 75 percent since the 2005-2006 academic year.

At this point, most Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

Our entire economy has become based on credit.

Do you need a car?

Just get an auto loan.

Do you need a house?

Just get a mortgage.

Do you need to fill up your house with stuff?

Just get a credit card.

Do you need an education?

Just get a student loan.

In fact, if you are anything like a typical American, you probably have a mortgage you can barely afford, you probably have at least one auto loan, you probably have several credit card balances and you probably have a student loan that you deeply regret.

So what should you do if you are drowning in debt?

First, make a firm decision that you are going to break the chains of debt slavery once and for all.

Secondly, come up with a plan to reduce your debt. Paying off debt that carries a high rate of interest first (such as credit card debt) is usually a good idea.

The big financial institutions want to get us into as much debt as possible, because all of this debt makes them incredibly wealthy.

Don't play their game.

Yes, that may mean that you may have to put off certain purchases until you can come up with the money, but in the long run you will be much better off.

Acting as a "central economic planner," the Federal Reserve is moving the U.S. economy from one market bubble to another, and the next one will be a disaster, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas - (Read Full Story)

After the collapse of the tech, housing and financial bubbles, Paul said, the "dollar bubble" will be next.

"That's going to be the big one," the Texas congressman said on the heels of yesterday's worldwide market plummet, which saw the Dow lose more than 500 points.

In response to the market bloodbath, Paul noted, investors are pouring money into treasury bills and dollars, "but that is a bubble, too."

"When the panic comes, and they leave the dollar and go into real assets, that's when the whole world knows that a new monetary system is on the horizon, because this one will not last," Paul warned.

Days like yesterday, he said, "are warning signs that that big crash is coming for the dollar."

Paul emphasized that along with Congress balancing the budget and stopping spending, the U.S. needs a new monetary system.

"The system is built on a monetary system where the Fed creates money out of thin air," he said. "You have to stop doing that, because that is what caused the deficits to pile on and the financial bubble."

Economy Debased by Lies, Fraud, and Bogus Statistics - (Read Full Story)

The entire concept of keeping the economy functioning is based upon US dollar debasement via the creation of excess money and credit, which is accompanied by departments of government and Wall Street. Once in the past 11 years in particular we have seen lies, fraud, bogus statistics and Mickey Mouse bookkeeping. For good measure the powers behind government have thrown in the gutting of America’s industrial base by outsourcing and offshoring. As an extra temporary measure the Fed has bailed out the financial sectors in the US and Europe and continues to bail out the US Treasury. Who cares about currency debasement because it’s a cost of doing business. 

We just witnessed another piece of legislation to destroy Social Security, Medicare and to usurp the US Constitution’s power to govern America via a “star chamber” group of 12 bought and paid for political operatives. Their style of government is very reminiscent of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. 

Currency debasement goes on relentlessly worldwide and now the Fed is hinting that a QE 3 may be needed. We expected those trial balloons to appear on or about August 15th to be followed during the first two weeks of September of an announcement and beginning of QE 3. We felt the $300 billion they could roll over from existing Treasuries would be exhausted around September 1st. We expect during August the Fed will make a major effort to sell CDOs and MBSs, better known as toxic waste to raise more capital. The question is how much will be lost in these latter transactions, that the American people will be responsible for? Again taxpayers pay for bank losses being laundered by the Fed, which a number of the banks involved own. These actions further demean the value of the dollar, cause worse inflation and force gold and silver related assets higher.

Gold surges above $1,700 on US downgrade woes - (Read Full Story)

Gold has hit all-time highs of $1,709 following a week in which Standard & Poors’ downgraded the US credit rating and equity markets plummeted on the Eurozone’s ongoing debt crisis.

The precious metal is up over 3% today and represents one of the only asset classes not to be sold off, with the FTSE 100 index opening trading this morning down 1%, while Asian markets shed 2.4%.

The sell-off follows the move by S&P on Saturday to cut the US credit rating from AAA for the first time in history, down to AA+, not long after the country’s political deadlock over raising its debt ceiling and making a deficit reduction

The Collapse of Nations All By The Hand Of Corrupt Bankers - (Read Full Story)

As far as we can discern the US Treasury thus far has spent and borrowed about $100 billion from the federal pension accounts. Unless there is a vote on the cash debt extension prior to August 2nd, government will probably have borrowed some $250 billion to $300 billion. The Treasury is paying virtually no interest on this debt. Three-month Treasury bills are currently yielding zero percent. Our question is how will the funds be generated to fulfill the Treasury’s obligation to the pension fund? What happens if on August 2nd if legislation is not passed? Does this go on forever? We will keep you apprised on new developments.

The current situation regarding the state of recovery in the US has turned from precarious to dismal and as we predicted a year ago May we will have to be treated to QE3 something no one really wants, but as we said before it is inevitable. The Fed and their controllers, the member bank owners of the Fed, know the present approach doesn’t work and it is only a matter of time, as a result of their policies, when more stimulus will be needed, which in turn leads to more inflation.

Due to the current state of affairs Fed Chairman Bernanke has been making one appearance on TV after another. He gets grilled over and over again and he doesn’t like the public reception at all. He shouldn’t, as more and more observers see that two quantitative easings haven’t worked. They cost at least $3.6 trillion in funds created out of thin air, and all they have done is prolong the agony. The flip side is the policy has caused higher inflation. What else can one expect when deficits astound and the Fed has to buy $1.6 trillion in Treasury bonds. A large percentage of this debt is used to wage perpetual war for perpetual peace. During this process the President has bypassed the Constitution and is deliberately repressing the freedoms of American citizens. There no longer is a separation of powers, but virtual dictatorship bought and paid for by Wall Street and banking.

The Coming Economic Hell For American Families - (Read Full Story)

Tens of millions of American families are about to go through economic hell and most of them don't even realize it. Most Americans don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about things like "monetary policy" or "economic cycles". The vast majority of people just want to be able to get up in the morning, go to work and provide for their families. Most Americans realize that things seem "harder" these days, but most of them also have faith that things will eventually get better. Unfortunately, things aren't going to get any better. The number of good jobs continues to decline, the number of Americans losing their homes continues to go up, people are having a much more difficult time paying their bills and our federal government is drowning in debt. Sadly, this is only just the beginning.

Since the financial collapse of 2008, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government have taken unprecedented steps to stimulate the economy. But even with all of those efforts, we are still living in an economic wasteland.

So what is going to happen when the next wave of the economic crisis hits?

Rep. Paul to Fed: Tell Us Everything, or Else - (Read Full Story)

The chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve demanded Tuesday that the Fed fully disclose details of billions -- perhaps trillions -- in secret emergency loans it made to almost every major bank in the U.S. and overseas during the financial crisis or face a congressional subpoena for the information.

In an interview with Fox Business, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee on domestic monetary policy, said he wants to know “how much, when, where and why” from Fed officials when they testify about the loans at a subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of what the Fed did during the big bailout a couple of years ago,” Paul said. “We have some precise questions. I imagine we won’t get all of them answered tomorrow because they’ll do a little bit of stonewalling, I’m sure.”

“If they don’t answer, they’ll hear from us,” he said. “We can use the subpoena power and say, ‘Look, you have to bring us the records.’"

Ron Paul: ‘New World Order’ Using Financial Crisis, Wars To Enhance Globalism (Full Story)

Congressman Ron Paul, icon to liberty lovers the world over, sent a stark message this week to ruling elite “internationalists” attempting to expand globalism via the Western military industrial complex – you will fail.

Speaking on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show, Paul expressed his concern that a deeply malign form of globalism is being promoted and expanded on the back of international crises, namely the political upheaval in the middle east and north Africa, coupled with ongoing financial meltdown.

“The new world order people see it as an opportunity to move one step forward.” Paul stated, alluding to an infamous description of the current US led international coalition of powers.

“Bush senior bragged about that, remember he didn’t want to go to Congress, he came and got a token approval in 1990/91 for the Persian Gulf war, but he got his orders from the UN, he didn’t need to go to Congress… That was the first time I heard a president use the words ‘new world order’, anyone who used that had to be a conspiracy nut, but Bush was saying this is what we need to do for the ‘new world order’.” Paul explained.

Austerity In America: 22 Signs That It Is Already Here And That It Is Going To Be Very Painful

Over the past couple of years, most Americans have shown little concern as austerity measures were imposed on financially troubled nations across Europe. Even as austerity riots erupted in nations such as Greece and Spain, most Americans were still convinced that nothing like that could ever happen here. Well, guess what? Austerity has arrived in America. At this point, it is not a formal, mandated austerity like we have seen in Europe, but the results are just the same. Taxes are going up, services are being slashed dramatically, thousands of state and city employees are being laid off, and politicians seem to be endlessly talking about ways to make even deeper budget cuts. Unfortunately, even with the incredibly severe budget cuts that we have seen already, many state and local governments across the United States are still facing a sea of red ink as far as the eye can see.

Most Americans tend to think of "government debt" as only a problem of the federal government. But that is simply not accurate. The truth is that there are thousands of "government debt problems" from coast to coast. Today, state and local government debt has reached at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. It is a crisis of catastrophic proportions that is not going away any time soon.

Over 1 million Americans seen losing homes in 2011

Lenders are poised to take back more homes this year than any other since the U.S. housing meltdown began in 2006. About 5 million borrowers are at least two months behind on their mortgages and industry experts say more people will miss payments because of job losses and also loans that exceed the value of the homes they are living in.

"2011 is going to be the peak," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. The firm predicts 1.2 million homes will be repossessed this year.

Ron Paul: Congress Criminally Devaluing Americans’ Savings

Last week the 112th Congress was sworn in. I am pleased that I will be chairing the Monetary Policy Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee, which has oversight of the Federal Reserve. Obviously, this position will facilitate my efforts to ensure the Fed provides the American people with more information about what they have been doing with and to our money. Not surprisingly, since my chairmanship was announced, apologists for the Fed have been recycling the old canard about how increased transparency threatens the Fed’s so-called political independence.

By independence, they are referring to the Fed’s ability to greatly impact the economy with virtually no meaningful oversight. We only recently learned that the bankers at the Fed were able to use the latest financial crisis to bail out Wall Street cronies and foreign central banks with billions of dollars that were created and wasted, instead of appropriated and voted on by representatives of the people. The Fed and its supporters in Congress vehemently fought even this small bit of transparency and without this one-time provision in the financial reform act forcing disclosure, we would still not have this information. Indeed, we are in the dark on so much of what the Fed has done. This is extremely dangerous for our country, yet this power and secrecy is defended as some kind of public good, which is patently ridiculous.

It's The Bankers Or Us

Problem, Reaction, Solution: Derivatives, Crash, Too Big To Fail, Bailout, Nationalization, Budget Crisis, Privatization, Debt Slavery, Austerity, Evaporating Pensions, Central Banks, Big Government, World Government. It's been quite a saga, but this economic crisis has been planned sabotage by design. The age of the Offshore Global Cartel is the age of economic warfare with the wealthy Western world. The 3rd World has largely already been brought to its knees. The remaining vestiges of national sovereignty must be eliminated and the middle class consumer society must be swept back to the feudal age by way of a tidal wave looting of living standards, cut wages & pensions, and the bread and circuses of cheap plastic goods and entertainment. The upper middle classes, the array of independent businesses, remaining lone giants and other true competition to the New World Order mafia economy system must be consolidated or dominated.

Alex Jones explains why it is the bankers or us will be free at the end of this crisis. The total cost of the derivatives is over $1.5 Quadrillion, a sum that will completely consume the world in perpetual debt, a sum that can never be repaid. It is an economic shearing, a shearing of the sheep. The economic crisis has always really been a complete transfer of power to the banking class.

Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms

The financial crisis stretched even farther across the economy than many had realized, as new disclosures show the Federal Reserve rushed trillions of dollars in emergency aid not just to Wall Street but also to motorcycle makers, telecom firms and foreign-owned banks in 2008 and 2009.

The Fed's efforts to prop up the financial sector reached across a broad spectrum of the economy, benefiting stalwarts of American industry including General Electric and Caterpillar and household-name companies such as Verizon, Harley-Davidson and Toyota. The central bank's aid programs also supported U.S. subsidiaries of banks based in East Asia, Europe and Canada while rescuing money-market mutual funds held by millions of Americans.

Countrywide's Mortgage Document Errors May Doom Bank of America

Testimony in a New Jersey foreclosure case decided last week may spell big trouble for Bank of America (BAC). If what one bank employee said on the stand proves to be accurate, paperwork problems it acquired when it purchased the failing mortgage provider Countrywide in 2008 could leave BofA on the hook for billions of dollars.

Linda DiMartini, a supervisor and operational team leader for the Litigation Management Department of BAC Home Loans Servicing, testified in the foreclosure case of John T. Kemp that it was "customary for Countrywide to maintain possession of the original note and related documents."

If that's true, then Bank of America may discover that it has millions of loans on its books that it thought it had transferred to trusts that issued mortgage backed securities, because 96% of Countrywide loans were ostensibly securitized. As the Congressional Oversight Panel explained, that outcome alone could cause massive damage to a bank's balance sheet. And as bad as that would be, it isn't the only problem that could result from Countrywide hanging on to the note.

Will Bankers go to Jail for Foreclosure-gate?

One of the amazing developments of the unraveling of the financial crisis has been the fact that there have been so few people we can actually point to and say without a doubt that guy or gal is a crook. Yes, Bernie Madoff and his fellow ponziers, but they were only flushed out by the financial crisis. They didn't really cause it. The Bear Stearns hedgies beat their case. The mastermind of AIG's demise Joe Cassano looks to have made a clean getaway. Lehman's Dick Fuld is still in the clear. Goldman and just last week Countrywide's executives had to pay out large fines. But none of them are headed to jail. John Paulson and other hedge funds that help construct CDO debt bombs and bet against them, haven't even been forced to give some of their winnings back. I can't think of anyone of any real consequence who is facing hard time.

Globalist Soros Declares "Gold Is The Ultimate Bubble". Again

Billionaire globalist George Soros wants you to think that investing in Gold is "unsafe" and that the rallies the precious metal has seen in the wake of the economic implosion are abnormal.

While admitting that gold prices could continue to rise following yesterday's surge on the back of increased inflation figures in the United Kingdom and bad news from a report indicating a weaker-than-expected eurozone industrial production, Soros told a crowd at a Reuters conference:

"It will be very interesting to see if there is a decline in the next few weeks. It's certainly not safe and it's not going to last forever."

Taxes must rise to fight budget deficit: Greenspan

Taxes must rise while fiscal stimulus needs to be wound down in order to reduce the U.S. budget deficit and allow private investment to expand, said former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan on Wednesday.

"I am in favor for the first time in my memory of raising taxes," Greenspan told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

US Says Bankruptcies Reach Nearly 5-Year High

U.S. bankruptcy filings have reached the highest level since 2005, government data released on Tuesday show, as the economy slows and the unemployment rate hovers just below double digits.

There were 422,061 bankruptcy filings between April and June, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, up 9 percent from 388,148 in the prior three-month period, and up 11 percent from 381,073 a year earlier.

Celente: Stock Market Crash Before End of 2010

Gerald Celente believes that the stock market will crash before the end of 2010 , gold will soar . When gold was at $275 per ounce in 2002, Celente said the price had bottomed and in 2004 forecast the beginning of the "Gold Bull Run." Since that time, with pinpoint accuracy, he said when, why - and how high - gold would go. Gerald Celente sees huge opportunities in green healthy food , technology for the poor and in rejuvenating the cities with quality architecture..., Gerald Celente as always recommends gold Canadian dollar the Swiss franc as hedges against the inflation.

Congress planning another bank bailout

Congress is at work on a new program that would send $30 billion to struggling community banks, in a process similar to the huge federal bailouts of big banks during the financial crisis. This time, money is more likely to disappear as a result of bank failures or fraud.

Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama declared an end to taxpayer bailouts when he signed a sweeping overhaul of financial rules. In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, he described the new bailout program as "a common-sense" plan that would give badly needed lending help to small-business owners to expand and hire.

Banking insanity

Unemployment is a favorite topic of conversation of late, especially among those who are unemployed. I assume it gives them something to do other than watch their lives going down the toilet as the federal government continues with unbelievable levels of deficit-spending and the Federal Reserve continues to create staggeringly more money so that it can be borrowed by the government and then spent, all of which makes prices rise.

Clash of the Classes: Does Rush Limbaugh Finally Get It?

Last week Rush Limbaugh ? mockingly called the leader of the Republican party by limo liberals in the corporate media ? talked about Angelo M. Codevilla's article published in the current issue of The American Spectator, America's Ruling Class ? And the Perils of Revolution. Codevilla points out something many of us have know for some time ? both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House represent the interests of the ruling class.

Following the bankster bailout and the decision by the establishment to stick the American tax payer with cost of fixing the rigged game known as the American financial system, many Republicans and Democrats came around to the realization that indeed the ruling elite are in control of the "political class" that claims to represent us. Both "Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class," writes Codevilla.

Watch out, the great £50bn property unload is about to begin

During the property slump of the early 1990s, there was a famous British Property Federation dinner at which the chairman introduced the guest speaker, Andrew Buxton of Barclays Bank, by inviting members to give a warm welcome to "a man to whom we owe more, er, than we can ever repay".

Bankers never seem to learn their lesson about the commercial property market. As the good times roll, they become ever more careless in their real estate lending, only then to lose their shirts in the subsequent bust.