“Crisis on cards as credit rates tipped to soar,” reports Frank Walker in The Age. “Australia’s love affair with credit cards has reached a crisis, with debt hitting record levels, more and more Australians using cards to meet mortgage payments and warnings that card interest rates are about to soar.”
Your typical Aussie has AU$3,000 in credit card debt. Aussies took out AU$1 billion in cash advances on their credit cards in July, according to Reserve Bank figures. July spending was AU$16.4 billion total. Meanwhile, “Financial experts are predicting the average credit card interest rate of 16 per cent will increase by two to three percentage points over the next eighteen months.”
Such an increase would be a disaster. “I have been doing this for 17 years and it is the worst I have ever seen, “ says Wendy Luckett, a financial counsellor at Credit Line. “I am seeing people who are contemplating suicide, marriages are breaking up under the strain and the human cost is enormous. It is not just poorer people getting too far into debt. I am seeing professional people with big homes, private schools and AU$40,000 credit limits where something has gone wrong and they can’t meet repayments.”
Dan Denning
The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Dan Denning is the author of 2005's best-selling The Bull Hunter (John Wiley & Sons). He began his financial publishing career in 1997 and has covered financial markets form Baltimore, Paris, London and, beginning in 2005 Melbourne. He’s the editor of The Daily Reckoning Australia and the Publisher of Port Phillip Publishing.
Comment by bassmanpete on 24 September 2007:
Many years ago my wife & I attended a wealth creation seminar (scam!) where the presenter said "Put your hand up if you have a credit card." There were at least 500 people in the room and the vast majority put up a hand, including the two of us.
He then said "Put your hand down if you DON'T pay off the balance each month." There were just 4 hands left up other than ours. We were both astounded as we considered ourselves quite uneducated when it came to finance but we knew we didn't want to be paying 14% or more interest. In fact we didn't want to be paying any interest at all!
If the people in that room reflected Australians generally then it's no wonder that there is a credit crisis. I think the problem is that people, in general, want instant gratification and, in many cases, don't even realise how much extra they're paying for it. And if (when) they get into difficulties it will be someone else fault, not their own inability to resist temtation.
Comment by Rob of Brisbane on 25 September 2007:
Australians are not in love with credit cards. They are reliant on credit cards in order to make ends meet.
Before, credit cards were used to buy the little luxuries in life.
Now they are being used to purchase fuel, buy food and pay the mortgage.
The cost of living is skyrocketing due mainly to demand on energy “Peak Oil”
In todays “must have “ society, we would not function without credit cards?
$40 billion of credit card debt has been racked up. Imagine the jobs and consumption that this has generated. I guesstimate some 400,000 jobs directly and indirectly can be attributed to credit card debt alone. Remove credit cards from society and watch the economy go into a tailspin.
Whilst we continue to be brainwashed to consume, we will keep filling the pockets of the Masonic & Wall Street Elite, nothing will change except more of us will become debt slaves.
As midnight oil says in their song “Read about it”
The rich get a richer
The poor get the picture
The bomb will never hit you
Cause your down so low. (Except for the debt bomb)
I also heard tragic news this morning on the radio, that farmers are committing suicide due to the drought and massive debt levels.
These are the toughest most resilient people in Australian society and they are driven to this end as they can’t handle it anymore, imagine what will happen when your average suburban Joe is getting crunched by debt levels, the undertaker will be the biggest employer in town.
If we are in the greatest “Economic Nirvana” in the history of Australia, but massive debt levels are driving people to commit suicide!
Then God help us when the “Big Dig” is over because I am sure the Chinese won’t.
Comment by Nikki on 25 September 2007:
Sadly, this is the state of the nation. I agree with bassmanpete. We are a nation fixated on technology and trends - everything must be better, faster and easier. With that comes the need for instant gratification. I have been in the debt recovery industry over 10 years and the levels of debt acrued by gen x-ers and gen y-ers is outrageous. But more surprisingly there is little to no education on the matter. With the increase of savvy marketing methods (toilet door ads, internet, email, mobile phone) there is no escape from enticing product advertising. Coupled with the mailing campaigns of financial institutions for credit offers there is little wonder a vast majority of citizens are sufferning under the weight of enormous debts.
Comment by Keepleft, Mot Adv-NSW on 22 October 2007:
Credit card debt is very much a social problem and folk *must* make much greater effort at removing this scourge from their lives.
I use a 'debit' card myself, and am satisfied with that. Avoid 'credit' cards, whatever you do in this odd life, avoid them without fail.