Consumer spending has come to a grinding halt. Nobody except for fools are spending money on shopping, retail or new cars. Many retailers, car dealers, restaurant chains etc etc are going bankrupt on daily basis and thousands lose their jobs daily. October alone saw a loss of 240000 jobs.

But how can the consumer spend, when there is no job security anywhere? A lot of recent college graduates continue staying unemployed despite high GPA of 3.5 or beyond. A friend of mine who has bachelor in math with 3.5 gpa is unemployed and a second friend with bachelor in finance with 3.7 gpa is unemployed too. And they both are thinking of filing bankruptcy. This is how bad things are.

And the bailout does not improve job market and neither does it address the problem of how to make the consumer spend more. So then how will economy be fixed?

Giving 0 billion to failed companies does not do anything because they will fail again, since consumer spending is very low now. Fannie Mae, AIG again reported billions and billions in losses despite being bailed out. If General Motor is bailed out again after few months it would need second bailout.

Why don’t they get it that bailout is not the answer to the economic crisis?

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I have K in cc debt with an average of about 14% interest. Another K in 0% financed stuff, ,400 mortgage, and 0 car payment, 0 student loan payment, and another K in bills each month. Due to new kiddo and making almost half what i did due to sudden change at work, i can barely pay the minimum I need to plus just K towards my debt each month. I have stopped spending money on anything, but the interest and amount of debt is killing me, and im sure the credit card companies are just waiting for me to miss one payment to default me to 33.3% interest. Please no guilt trip on the amount of debt, i got stuck with alot of it after a divorce 2 years ago and i didnt even do the spending!!

Technorati Tags: alot, car payment, credit card companies, divorce, guilt trip, kiddo, mortgage, spending money, student loan payment, sudden change

My boyfriend of 2 years just moved in with me from another city and we’ve talked about marriage quite a bit; however, we have different views on spending money. I’m a saver/invester (life insurance, 401k, just bought a house and fixing it up to increase resale) and although he doesn’t blow his money, he isn’t saving for retirement (i.e.401k) and is carrying 4k of credit card debt that he’s slowly paying off (he isn’t using his CC anymore to avoid building the debt) He pays all his other bills, though, including 15k of student loans.

I wouldn’t say he’s not responsible, but he doesn’t appear to see the importance of saving or taking care of his debt (or perhaps he’s avoiding the hassle). He works from home as a freelance writer and makes decent money, but he doesn’t have the option of direct deposit and gets no employee benefits like a 401k to make it easy for him to put the money away before seeing it in his paycheck. And now that he’s saving by living with me, he appears to be spending money on other things (not like crazy, but enough to notice) when (I think) he should be paying down his credit card debt.

I’ve brought up the topic, but only in a half-joking way that probably comes across as condescending, but I don’t know how else to approach it. Getting engaged is probably going to happen in the next 6 months, but I honestly don’t want to start planning a wedding until he gets his financial ducks in a row. Since I don’t have a ring on my finger, I don’t feel I have the right to say what he should/shouldn’t do with his money, but at the same time I’m taking mental notes of how it could delay the next step in our relationship or cause problems down the road. I want to bring it up with him now so that he’s at least aware of my concerns so I can avoid being condescending, but I’m not sure how to approach the topic without him getting defensive.

Other notes: I’m 28, he’s 29. My parents raised me to be very responsible with my money. I don’t know how his parents mentored him in money management, but I do know when they divorced when he was 16 they both went bankrupt, even though they lived comfortable previous to that. I came from a wealthier family, but that’s only because my parents worked their butts off and saved whatever they could. His parents are great and also worked hard for their money, but I don’t think they were ‘planners’ when it came to what they made.

Please help!

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Now I know most European countries like Greece, the UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany etc. are all about high taxes and spending money on programs that are very socialist in nature. This is fine if everyone in the country is down for it, and will pay for it, but the thing is most people don’t want to pay for it and so a lot of these countries have debt loads that are like more than 100% of their GDP sometimes in the 2s and 3s depending on the metric, or their bankrupt apparently (i.e. Greece). Those big spending european socialist countries are all like way up there compared to the rest of the world in debt, they make the U.S. look pretty efficient spenders in fact. I don’t think countries like Sweeden or Denmark are any different from the rest of western Europe as far as socialist spending priorities are concerned, but they seem to carry a far lower debt load, lower than the United States in fact. How do they do it? Is it because they spend basically nothing on defense (because who the hell is going to attack Sweden? The Pittsburgh Penguins?) Have they figured out a way to get people to pay for socialist programs that put a disincentive on them to make enough money to fork over the money necessary to do that? Do people just make a lot of money there anyway, and there aren’t as many poor people leeching off the system in comparison? Really, what are the Scandinavians doing that the rest of the world can learn? I’m not dissing socialism here, this is an honest question, because they might be on to something.

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I am 23 years old, in college part time and working part time. I am recently divorced and have about ,000 in loans and credit card bills I got stuck with that were all aqquired during the marriage. Since I can only afford minimum payments (and receive no financial aid) I feel like I should look into bankruptcy.
I have two credit cards, so If I file bankruptcy on just my loans (,000) and one credit card, does keeping the one credit card plus an account balance with Dell (for a laptop I financed) help my credit score at all, as opposed to filing on everything I owe?
And everyone says to do it before I get any older if I’m going to do it. And I don’t expect any new bills (I have a dependable car and low rent) anytime soon.
Sometimes I feel like bankruptcy is "cheating" but I had an extra income at the time I signed for the loans, and of course didn’t expect to get divorced. I feel helpless, as the balances barely go down and i’m spending money I need to live, or I’m going to have to quit school.

Technorati Tags: 23 years, account balance, bankruptcy, college part time, credit card bills, credit cards, credit score, dell, dependable car, extra income, financial aid, laptop, loans, low rent, marriage, minimum payments, spending money