For the briefest period of time, people in America panicked and realized that money doesn’t last forever. Debt nearly took people to the brink of poverty. Their banks collapsed around them, and their personal finances went into a tail spin. For the first time in decades, Americans started pulling back on their spending habits. Even short term loans started decreasing too.
In 2010, large retailers started advertising lay-a-way again. This concept had completely disappeared, but saving for that special item was vogue again. Credit was risky business, and most people’s personal finances couldn’t handle the 27% interest rates that were being applied to their credit cards. Immediate gratification through credit card purchases came to a screeching halt. From the retailer’s perspective, it made since to whip out the old concept of paying a little each month until the object of desire was payed for. It was only then that someone got to take that new TV home. Could it be that the businesses that got people in trouble with their personal finances in the first place were going to switch to responsible marketing?
Not so fast! Those lay-a-way plans went away as soon as the economy took a little upswing. Even people who had been unemployed for years were back to their old habits. Jobs were becoming available, and people just seemed to forget the disaster they had lived through. They couldn’t remember how to save, but they sure could remember how to borrow. Nothing learned, likely nothing gained. Everything at risk of being lost.
This seems to be the only way contemporary Americans know how to run their personal finances. It keeps the economy in a very precarious state. We’ll always be on the economic tight rope as we gamble that bad things won’t ever happen again. No one wants to remember the bad days. The eternal optimism of a country built on capitalism and spending keeps the family check book one paycheck away from disaster.