Americans Are Crushed by Debt and One Crisis Away From Disaster

 I bought a package of paper towels the other day and it cost $13.  My dog got a leg infection on Saturday and the vet cost $400 to diagnose it and prescribe antibiotics.  The brakes on my car cost $1400.  It seems every time you need something fixed it's now $1000.  How is everyone paying for everything when everything has doubled or tripled in price?  The answer is that most Americans aren't...they are putting it on their credit cards and unless something changes it can't keep going on.

Americans are currently beset by record levels of debt, and their financial burden could further increase thanks to rising interest rates, inflationary prices and the looming end of the student loan moratorium.

Total household debt climbed to a new high in the second quarter of 2023, reaching $17.06 trillion, with credit card debt exceeding $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As interest rates stay high, costs continue to rise for expenses like housing and cars, and student loan payments resume, the amount of debt may rise, according to economists who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

"The amount of debt outstanding, and in particular the surpassing of the $1 trillion mark, is significant and worrisome," Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. "It owes to a combination of several factors. The initial response to the pandemic, which prominently included the Fed setting policy (interest) rates at essentially zero for several years, made the amount of credit and the price of taking on debt extraordinarily cheap."

Interest rates for all credit lines are facing upward pressure following the Federal Reserve hiking the federal funds rate eleven times since March 2022, bringing the current rate to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%. Rates were hiked in an effort to combat inflation, which remained elevated in July at 3.2%, ticking up from 3.0% in June but down from 9.2% in June 2022.

"Interest rates on credit cards, car loans, mortgages, and other forms of debt have been shooting up, making the servicing of debt taken at low prices more expensive presently," Earle told the DCNF.

As of July, 61% of adults still said they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new LendingClub report, slightly more than last year’s 59%.

Already, four out of five consumers’ spending habits have been affected by inflation, according to TD Bank’s annual consumer spending index.

Some 70% of Americans admit to being stressed about finances, according to a separate CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey, largely due to inflation, rising interest rates and a lack of savings.

Only 45% of adults said they have an emergency fund. For those who do have emergency savings, about 26% polled said they have less than $5,000 saved.

This pressure could worsen if the Fed decides to raise its federal funds rate once again, with Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell hinting at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium that rates will be raised if market conditions do not soften.

Here;  Americans Crushed By Debt Are One Crisis Away From Disaster (prophecynewswatch.com)

The finances of America simply can't continue on this trajectory much longer.  Something has got to give.

It would seem that we are heading to that time in Revelation that speaks of people working all day just to make enough money to buy their daily bread...and nothing more.

We have said it many times before, but maybe God needs to take away the false idol of AMERICA in order for us to clearly see that Jesus is our only hope.