Debt
has both a financial side and a human side.
It is easier to measure the financial side and the figures are enormous.
Debt
is absorbing Americans, they carry a record $972.5 billion in circulating funds at the end of 2007 in accordance with data from the Federal Reserve.
“The typical American family owns a
debt
of $11.000 to $12.000 in credit cards,” reports president and chief executive officer of Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. Christopher Viale. He adds that those who don’t have any
debt
dilute those figures. Families holding
debt
from month to month typically have nearly $17.000 of unsecured
debt
, he points out.
He adds that one out of every five families either does not manage to make in time payments or approach the time limit of as minimum one account. “If you visit every fifth house in every American street you’ll encounter a family living in the zone of penalty rates on credit cards.”
If to look at things in proper prospect, he tallies that the percentage and penalty rates on a sum of $17.000 comes up to $400 a month. “So that $400 they send aren’t going to the first deposit of $17.000,” Viale concludes.
What is beyond the figures?
From the point of view of human side the aftereffects of having
debt
never come alone. No matter how hard you try to separate your problems the lines still become indistinct.
There is one extraordinary example when a school bus driver had been carrying a
debt
and not letting know her husband about that. Eventually she had to visit credit counselor Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services together with her husband in order to receive the unpleasant news.
“Seeing that her husband is physically a very huge man and noticing that he was evidently getting furious I tried to even his temper,” remembers Dvorkin, “But it was a very awkward position.”