Today, on the Two Mikes, and after too long an absence, we were joined by Mr. Gordon Oliver from Cambridge Credit Counseling (888 764 7468) to discuss some of the economic problems that Americans are still encountering. One of the best ways to see that consumers are still struggling with higher prices, Mr. Oliver said, is to track the level of nationwide credit-card debt. Over the past few years that number has increased from $840 billion to $1.3 trillion dollars. Clearly, consumers are using credit cards to cover expenses they previously paid for from the income they earn. Moreover, 65-percent of retirees are still carrying debt, and about 68-percent of Americans are living from check-to-check. Obviously, many Americans are living on edge of economic disaster. In addition, Mr. Oliver added that young Americans are particularly endangered by the overuse of credit cards and student loans. Why? Well it truly appears that before the time comes for college, younger Americans are living in households where parents do not often speak to and with their children about the expense of modern-day life or about how to live within one's means. Most of us have visited homes or eaten in restaurants where families are dining and the youngsters are playing with their phones, and often their parents are doing the same. American families do not seem to spend a lot of time talking about how to responsibly manage money. Moreover, the youngsters often have neither parents nor grandparents that have lived through really hard times, and so can offer little about coping with really hard economic times. It also appears also that children are taught little about budget keeping in grammar or high school. Perhaps as bad is that it seems that there are relatively few Americans who possess even a small portion of commonsense, the lack of which was once the sole province of intellectuals, Democrats, and college professors. These days, the devotion of the young to expensive electronic devices and expensive forms of entertainment comes easy with credit cards. Concerts, all kinds of electronics, sports betting -- to name a few such items -- are so easily acquired that it seems likely that many youngsters are in debt even before they graduate from high school, just as they are about to step into the great scam known as student loans. This lack of an introduction to planning for life's expenses and the genuine need to save money -- that is the clear lack of commonsense -- often leaves youngsters unready economically and intellectually for the debt they build, at times blithely, from the cost of entertainment and college and so emerge from the latter with a sizeable debt that is probably unmanageable in the first years after graduation, and perhps far longer. Mr. Oliver has agreed to join us again soon and we will devote most of that episode to the issue of student loans, how to think about and handle them, and the disaster which is nearly certain for those who have little common sense, more or less for the moment, and are relatively ignorant about or have disdain for the idea of carefully budgeting their money. --Cambridge Credit Counseling: Tel: 1 800-235-1407; 8887647468 Website: https://www.cambridge-credit.org SPONSORS Triangle Fragrance: https://trianglefragrance.com/?sca_ref=4171318.dUndUHDKz3 Cambridge Credit: https://www.cambridge-credit.org/twomikes EMP Shield: https://www.empshield.com/?coupon=twomikes Our Gold Guy: https://www.ourgoldguy.com www.TwoMikes.us