The Dirtiest Four Letter Word
For Senior Citizens -- DEBT

Now days, our children and grandchildren are likely to buy now, pay later. Today, consumers are in debt to the tune of one-trillion dollars or over $3,900 per credit card issued and this does not include mortgages on homes or automobile loans. Somehow, our society changed from the requirement of being financially frugal -- to buy now pay later.

Course, I guess you can't blame anyone for not being frugal. After all, businesses have programmed the masses to think "this new gadget is the best" and one "you must have" with no money down and years to pay. The media strangles us with hype about the latest, the best, and the necessity to have everything NOW! They even came up with the idea of "cash back" -- an up-front rip-off disguised to entice you to buy something you probably shouldn't. Anyone who buys something using a credit card quickly realizes if you don't pay it off each month you pay some pretty steep interest rates. These credit card companies justify their high interest rates since they claim they are needed to cover the credit card users who don't pay -- built in irresponsibility.

If you're retired and living on a modest income, you quickly realize that debt is truly an ugly word. Hopefully, your home, car, and furnishings are all paid for. If you are like my wife and me, we don't buy anything if we can't afford it (unless of course it is computer equipment that I absolutely need). Fortunately, I can resist the latest fashion in clothes, my old ones are much more comfortable and I like the worn look. Something the younger generation has learned.

Of course, now days if you do get into heavy debt with no desire or possibility to pay it off, you can declare bankruptcy. It's no big deal. You don't go to debtor's prison. Credit card companies do tear up your credit cards for a little while. Some of the lowly companies even garnishee your wages. But that soon passes and you can easily get new credit as debt is as American as apple pie. No stigma, no problem.

You see how this philosophy has spread across our nation into the very heart of our governing bodies. There are even a great number of supposedly educated economist's that claim that our national debt is "No Problem." Even though every man, woman, and child in the United States share of the national debt is $69,000 some economists say we will grow out of it. The federal debt is now over five trillion dollars and will increase at a rate of one-quarter of a trillion dollars each year with the yearly budgets planned. Our politicians are not overly concerned about this debt. They claim they can balance the budget in seven years -- meaning income will equal expenditures. Don't you believe it.

Unlike those who have declared bankruptcy, the federal government will just print more money causing inflation to increase rapidly. The higher the inflation the less money is worth and its easier to pay off past debts with bushels full of low value dollars. I guess we've raised these people to take our country down the wrong path as being frugal is no longer in vogue or necessary. Old values die easily it seems and so will "the good faith of the United States."