Financial Excellence by John Avanzini

Author:John Avanzini
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-24T19:29:51+00:00

Part III

Debt: Its Responsibility,Its Reduction

5

Debt

Up to Our Eyeballs in Debt!

... the borrower is servant to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7

The amount of money the average family owes to banks, department stores, and other lending institutions has risen every year for the past thirty years. Consumer debt has increased at an even higher rate than the cost of living. It now represents a much larger percentage of the average worker's earnings.

Thirty years ago, only about 10 percent of individual earnings was being spent on consumer debt. Today, that figure has risen to a staggering 19 percent. That means almost one-fifth of the average person's earnings is now spent to service his ever-increasing debt!

American consumer debt grew by almost $50 billion in the twelve months of 1988. This amount brought the total to about $700 billion! If this enormous debt were to be evenly divided among every man, woman, and child in the United States, they would each owe about $2,800. Now, mind you, that is only consumer debt. This figure does not include the more than $1 trillion (1,000 billion) that the American public owes to various lending institutions on their home mortgages.

The Wild Card

Today, plastic credit cards make consumer borrowing easier than ever before. These cards are rapidly adding to the whopping debt that now takes 19 percent of all household income.

Credit cards are much easier to abuse than bank loans. The reason is that they do not require the borrower to fill out lengthy forms. Neither do they require him personally to sit down with a loan officer and discuss his ability to repay. Instead, many preapproved credit cards now arrive through the mail. No consultation with the bank is necessary, so the already over-extended borrower can go out that very day and add $500 to $2,500 to his debt.

Large-scale distribution of pre-approved credit cards is unique to our generation. Before their advent, American Christians were not nearly so predisposed to purchasing consumer goods on credit. Easy access to these plastic charge cards has resulted in the Christian community finding itself in a position of higher debt than ever before. This one strategy of the devil has done more to enslave God's children than any other.

Credit-Card Junkies

Many people in our generation are actually addicted to credit spending. These people have been given their own special name. They are called "credit-card junkies." Just like the junk-food junkies who cannot control their appetite for unhealthy foods, these financial junkies cannot control their appetite for compulsive buying.

This compulsion quickly finds them over their heads in debt. These impulsive spenders do not give a moment's consideration to how their actions will effect their already limited finances. With the mere presentation of their plastic power, they can plunge themselves and the ones they love yet further into the bottomless pit of debt.

One recent news story told of a man who owed the unbelievable amount of $67,000 on his multiple credit cards. With this balance, his minimum payment was over $6,200 per month. This amount represented twice his entire family's monthly income.

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