The United States government is bankrupt many time over. It has no money and it owes more than 15,000,000,000,000 dollars. WE THE PEOPLE ARE ON THE HOOK FOR THAT MONEY!

Don’t look for help from Obama or the government because they have nothing. All they have the ability to do is to steal from future generations. YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS DEBT.

Start letting your representatives in Washington on both sides know that this has to stop. Get angry because the only way things are going to change is if the American people let their leaders know that enough is enough!

If you are someone who just can’t seem to save, perhaps you need to give yourself an adult allowance. Mind you, that’s not a good thing but perhaps you need to adopt that strategy.

When you were a kid, you probably got some sort of allowance when you reached a certain age. That was the money your parents gave you and you could do with it whatever you wanted. You could save it or blow it on any old thing you wanted. But once you ran out of money and spent it all, you had to wait until the next week (or month) before you got more.

With the debt crises we are in now and the atrocious economy, it is obvious that too many adults have a spending problem. They just can’t stop! I think for a person that has trouble saving, they need to voluntarily put themselves on an allowance and stick to it.

First you would need to figure out what your fixed expenses are like your gas, heat, food, rent, mortgage, gas, etc. Estimate those on the high side to give you some room for error. What you have left then after you account for all those expenses would be your disposable income. Now the problem is that today more and more people don’t have anything left over and that is why they are getting into trouble and having to look for debt relief grants (of which there are none).

If you are one of the lucky ones that do have money left over each month, you then need to make a serious decision: you need to figure out how much you want to save and balance that with how willing you are to give up some of your fun money. In order to be serious about saving, you need to sacrifice. That is the problem we have today: no one is willing to go without and wait until they can afford the things they want. They have to have everything NOW and that means pulling out the credit cards.

Give yourself a set amount (allowance) for fun money and STICK to it. Put the rest away in the bank or in stocks and do it EVERY month. Don’t waiver and give in. That is the only way you will ever learn to save and get out of debt.

Our debt ceiling is a complete and total joke. Today, President Obama was going to request that it be raised by another 1.2 trillion dollars but he decided to delay that request until January 2012 since everyone in the government is on vacation (including him). I wish they would stay at home and never come back.

Didn’t we just go through all this a couple of months ago? Why even bother to debate things at this point? We all know that Congress will eventually agree the debt ceiling has to be raised (again) and they will the next time and the time after that too. It doesn’t matter whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, it is all the same. They don’t care anymore so why bother pretending? We the people don’t care anymore either as we keep electing these jerks into office.

Seriously, lets just be done with it and raise the ceiling to $100 trillion. When that is reached we can raise it to $500 trillion. At some point the Chinese or some other country are going to own us anyway, if there is anything left to own.

The American people don’t really seem to want to cut spending, that is clear. Well, a small percentage does but the rest likes its freebies and entitlements. If we are ever going to change that mindset it probably won’t be in time anyway. All this bickering and pretending is a waste of time and just for show.

We Americans have fallen in love with debt. We fund our whole lives with it and give little thought to the consequences. If it gets too high we search for debt relief grants or file bankruptcy. No big deal. In ten years time or however many years it is, that bankruptcy won’t show up on our record anymore anyway. Totally worth the risk right? Most people seem to think so.

So, we may be borrowing from our kids and grand kids but who cares? We probably won’t be around when they start to understand what has happened and become really pissed. We will be dead and gone but at least we will have led a good life: that fancy house, car, and other stuff are just too tempting. We should be getting free healthcare too that they can pay for later on. It’s all about us and what we want and what we think we deserve.

So in the name of progress, just raise that debt ceiling to an amount where we don’t have to think about it anymore. I hate feeling guilty about stealing from the younger generations.

Have you ever wanted to check your credit online only to find that all those “free credit scores” sites really aren’t free? You really have to read the fine print for these (in the Terms and Conditions section at the bottom of their websites) or most likely you will get burned. Always read the Terms and Conditions of any website BEFORE you pull out your credit card because sometimes they are so long and involved they will scare the living daylights out of you!

All you want is to be able to check your credit scores to see what they are. Nothing more and nothing less. But most of these so-called free sites want a dollar up front and they want that dollar so that they can get your credit card information. They might say the dollar is refundable so that they can technically say it is “free”. But the key is that you have to enter your credit card number and THAT is how they get you.

You see, they all have a “free trial period” which is most often 7 days and should you forget to cancel within the 7 days they will automatically charge your credit card $29.95 or some other amount that you obviously didn’t want to pay had you known the truth. You are then paying that monthly amount until you are able to get someone on the phone at their company and cancel. THAT is often hard to do.

Some of these fake “free” credit report websites are “freescore360.com”, “freecreditscore.com”, “freescoreonline.com”, “myfreecreditscore.com”, and many others. A general rule seems to be that if they have the word “free” in the URL name, they really aren’t free at all and a credit card is needed to get your scores. The credit card is the big warning sign that trouble is around the corner!

This type of free offer where you get charged at a later date is known as a “rebill” offer and you really have to be careful of them now days. The FTC has even gotten involved to stop these “rebill” type sites in some situations.

So, where can you find really free credit reports and scores online? I just signed up with Credit Karma and never had to pull out my wallet. I only got one of my three credit scores but hey, who cares as they are probably all similar. Credit Karma has an A rating with the BBB and they give you all sorts of charts and information that might be of value to you.

Right now everyone is pretty much in debt and looking for things like debt relief grants. But part of that is knowing what your credit scores look like as they can affect a lot of what you can do financially. It is a shame that so many of these credit score websites are misleading and really not free but it looks like Credit Karma is one of the good guys. They make their money by recommending products to you (that you don’t have to buy) and not by tricking you into a monthly fee.  

America’s debt is so high now that is is likely that most people cannot grasp just how serious the situation is. I mean, does the average person on the street really understand the difference between 14 trillion and 14 billion dollars? How can they when most of them are struggling just to get or keep a job that pays maybe $50,000. People can visualize how much a million dollars is and maybe even a 100 million but when you get into the billions and trillions, I would guess that a lot of people tune out because those numbers are hard to put into perspective.

Debt relief grants are what too many people are searching for these days because they are behind on their bills. But what most families owe pales in comparison to what trouble our politicians have gotten this country into. The graphic below puts our countries debt into terms most of us can understand by comparing it to a families household budget. As you can see, the money the USA is bringing in isn’t anywhere near what is going out and the amount of debt we have racked up so far is about 6.5 times the yearly income. If the America were a family, that family would be BANKRUPT!

It is obvious that the last 10 to 20 years, we have all been asleep at the wheel. We can blame Republicans or Democrats for this crisis but the responsibility really lies with us, the voters. Individuals don’t seem to adhere to the importance of saving anymore and they have been electing politicians who don’t save either. Everyone seems to like to spend and now we have a situation that might not be reversible.

Because of our high debt we have a poisoned atmosphere in the U.S. like I have never seen before. Poor vs. rich, unemployed vs. employed, Democrats vs. Republicans, Liberals vs. Conservatives, citizens vs. illegal citizens, and all sorts of other groups pitted against one another. It’s crazy and much of the anger is a result of America being in so much trouble economically.

What can you do? START SPENDING LESS AND SAVING EVERYTHING YOU CAN. Lead by example and teach your kids how important it is to NOT spend money until they have it. We have to change the culture in this country and go back to the basics again.

We are all in debt. Individuals, companies, towns, cities, states, and the whole country. Debt is an epidemic right now with no signs that it will ever get better.

Perhaps one of the ways to slowly get ourselves out of debt is for our government to adopt the same policy of only allowing one child per couple like China does. Sound crazy? Well it might be but Vice President Biden understands that policy and that in itself is scary. He apparently then went on (during his China trip) to say that the United States could improve it’s debt situation with such a “one child” policy.

It will never matter how many children we have as long as our country is filled with people who are uneducated about finances and feel they have a “right” to things regardless of whether they can afford them. When did parents stop teaching their children to save for the things they want? Those are the lessens that are lacking and have led to a generation of people who think being in debt is totally normal.

Lets look at the housing crisis that was reported to have been brought on by bankers and other financial institutions that lent money to people who couldn’t afford it. No money down and all sorts of other irresistible gimmicks were too enticing for people to turn down. While that may be true, part of the blame has to go to every homeowner that signed up for those deals. Didn’t they know or care that they were a paycheck away from defaulting on those mortgage loans? Didn’t they realize that the loans they were taking out were way bigger than they should have been? With proper finance knowledge and training, people SHOULD have turned those loans down. But they didn’t because they were greedy and financially naive.

During the last 20 to 30 years we have become a society that has become obsessed with having things right now regardless of whether we can afford it. People feel they have a “right” to material things and too many of us are willing to go into debt to satisfy our lust for that wealth.

Our government is just a reflection of us. We elect politicians that have the same contempt for prudent spending as we do and because we let them get away with it, we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff. Biden and Obama can blame the number of children we have or any number of other stupid reasons but it won’t change a thing. The reason we are in debt is because we have been unwilling to spend only the money that we have or are going to get. We have a spending problem not a baby problem!

In an Ohio State study, it was found that being in debt actually added to young people’s self esteem. Both debt from paying for an education and regular spending debt from credit cards made young people feel better about themselves. This was especially true for people who came from poor backgrounds and less likely to be true for people who came from middle or upper class backgrounds.

Just the fact that any kind of debt could make people feel good is incredible and VERY SAD! Debt is never good (unless you are borrowing at low rates in times of high inflation) and it has become way to normal to have debt. Yes, debt from going to college means you went to college but it still means you have debt to weigh you down and pay back. An investment in your future doesn’t necessarily mean you HAVE to go in debt.

People in today’s world, especially young people, have no idea how hard it is to make money and repay debt. They have such an unrealistic and rosy view of the world that doesn’t include many of the financial burdens they will encounter. Too many young people just don’t realize how hard it is to accumulate money and pay off debt. Often time they don’t even know what taxes are because they have never had real jobs and had to pay it.

These are the same 20 and 30 somethings that are happy to be in debt now but will soon enough be searching for debt relief on their computers. When they get out in the real world for good and start looking for that job with the near 10% unemployment rate we have now, they will start to realize that the payments they have to make are a real pain. What about all the people who have lost their jobs and are having to file for unemployment? I’ll bet their self esteem has gone WAY down.

Much of this problem has to do with our poor education system and the often horrible job parents are doing now days of parenting. Debt should be explained to kids by their parents and taught to avoid it at all costs. Of course this is getting harder and harder as many parents are clueless themselves as we keep on voting in politicians that raise the debt in our country.

It seems everyone and everything is in debt now: but debt is NOT normal. And that is the problem that is really starting to bring this country down.

Debt is normal and everyone has it. There is nothing wrong with being in debt, any kind of debt, because all “normal” people have it. In fact, if you find someone who is not in debt you may wonder “what is wrong with them?”

These are the thoughts of Americans in the year 2011. There is no longer any stigma to being in debt. Declaring bankruptcy is no longer frowned upon, it is just something you do when you get in a bit of trouble. Debt used to be associated with buying a house or a car, two big ticket items that very few could afford to pay cash for. But now, debt is used for everything under the sun that people buy everyday.

I was taught by my parents that if I wanted something I had to save enough money before I could buy it. That’s how I paid for some of the toys I wanted that my parents wouldn’t pay for. I made money doing odd chores around the house as well as babysitting and summer jobs which helped my buy some of those things.

When I became an adult I stuck with the same principle that if I really wanted something, I needed to buy it with cash. Credit cards in my family are only used for convenience as I have never paid a cent of interest to any credit card company. I have been in debt for only automobile purchases and house purchases. I know many go into debt to finance their college tuition and that is most often unavoidable but I was lucky to have that paid for.

Everyone’s circumstances are different and not everyone is as fortunate as I am. That I understand. However, it is clear that way too many people buy things they can’t afford and have to go into debt to do it. They think that because everyone else is doing it, including our politicians, it must be okay. They haven’t learned to save before you buy and to pay for things with cash.

People are now desperate for money. This is the worst economy many of us have ever seen and folks are buried in debt, often with no way out. Unemployment rates continue to stay high and without jobs, people have little hope. In many cases the trouble they are in is because they never learned how to save for a rainy day because, people just aren’t taught to do that anymore.

It’s sad that some think that the government will help them out with debt relief grants or some other free money program. The government isn’t our safety net and never will be but too many of us think it is. Actually, our government is in more trouble than we individually are which poses a bigger threat to all of us. Having the kind of debt and the amount of debt many Americans have today is NOT normal. You may think it is based on what you see and hear but debt like this is a relatively new phenomena.

It’s amusing but really rather sad that people think they can get debt relief from the United States government. After all, our government is in more debt than ever before and I think it is clear that most people have no clue just how serious the problem really is.

To demonstrate the massive extent of our nation’s debt, I found this Reuters article that puts everything in plain English that we can understand:

Our debt right now is over 14 trillion dollars. How much is that really? Well you could put stacks of $1,000 bills together and it would reach 900 miles according to that article.

A stack of $1.00 bills in that amount would stretch all the way to the moon and back!

The real problem is that our government continues to borrow at a rate of 4 billion dollars every day. That equals about 167 million dollars every hour. How can we ever pay all that back?

Yet every day, hundreds if not thousands of people go online looking for government debt relief grants that they hope will help get them out of debt. The have no idea that they are looking for help from the biggest culprit of them all regarding irresponsible financial behavior: our U.S. government.

Whether you agree or disagree with what the politicians are doing in Washington, you should be aware and start to understand just how mammoth our countries debt problem is. No matter how bad you have been with debt and how irresponsible you have been, our elected government officials over the last 20 years have been worse.

Debt is big business in America and around the world. I mean REALLY BIG BUSINESS! Thousands of companies make their money one way or another by you going into debt. They want you to be in debt and they want you to stay in debt so that they can keep making money.

First off there is the credit card industry. Everyone wants to give you a credit card and I’m sure you constantly get pre-approved applications in the mail just like I do all the time. They make it sound like they are doing you a favor and trying to make your life easier with their card. They will give you rewards, a better rate, and better service than the net guy. But all they really want is for you to use their card and hopefully run up your debt. Credit card companies make money when you don’t pay them off each month. They want you to only pay the minimum so they can charge you the maximum in interest.

Even all the big retail stores are in the debt industry as they try to get you to sign up for their credit cards. How many times do I have to tell these people I don’t want their Macy’s card as I try to buy my underwear and socks and try to get out of the store?

Next there is the loan industry. People need loans for cars, boats, houses, and any other big purchase. When you get a loan for any of these you are going into debt and you are paying for that “privilege”. Same as with credit cards, the loan companies hope you only pay the minimum each month. They DON’T want you to pay off the loan. They don’t make as much money if you pay the loan off and give them their money back so they hope you only pay the minimum.

School loans are big business now as well. College costs are way up and most students need a loan to get their degrees. It’s sad that so many college students have to borrow money just to complete their education. Many of these students will be paying off these college loans for 5 to 30 years after they graduate.

Finally there is the industry of debt relief. The system is set up to get you into trouble with debt and once you are, there is a whole network of companies that will help you get out of trouble. For a price of course. Debt relief is like operating on you after you get sick when it might be too late. They want you to get sick so they can get you on that operating table.

Is there really anything that can truly be called debt relief? NO, because the only thing that would qualify would be free money and there is no such thing as free money. There are no government grants for debt relief. There are no programs that will suddenly erase your debt. There is nothing that will magically make your debt go down!

Debt relief companies will promise you lots of things but they won’t get rid of your debt. Oh, they will “help” you by making you more organized by moving this loan over here and that loan over there. They will combine this loan with that loan and maybe get you a lower rate and they might give you a lot of fluffy advice on how to not get yourself into further debt problems. But none of this will come for free and you will be paying them because they want their cut and they are in business too.

That is the industry of debt and the way the system works now. Get as many people into debt and then tell them you will help them get out of it. Every business along the way profits from this scenario and the goal is to get you there and keep you there. The longer the better.