The credit card endgame of the credit card

credit expands.  This psychological gamblepaid off multiple dividends over the decades as many real income strapped Americans started confusing housing debt, auto loans, and plastic shiny cards in the wallet as some kind of newfound wealth.  Access to debt suddenly became a new definition for wealth.  No other country has manic usage of debt like the United States.  1 out of 7 Americans carries over 10 credit cards.  Another 1 in 7 uses at least half the balance on their credit card.  How is it possible to give so much access to debt to a nation where the average per capita income rounds out at $25,000?  The misguided notion that deficits do not matter that engulfed the country like a bad fad in the 1970s and 1980s largely set the stage for our current peak debt situation.  Credit card debt is now fiercely contracting and the 40 year run is over.

Since the first credit card was introduced to the American public it took off like apple pie, pinball machines, and gnomes on the front lawn.  Initially the credit card was extended to people that could demonstrate actual creditworthiness to their local bank since it was their money on the line so the prestige of carrying a card actually meant something.  As we neared the peak in 2008 $975 billion in credit card debt was floating in America all the while the economy was beginning to fly off the financial cliff.  This insanity permeated to other countries where even a cat landed a credit card:

What can alter a system to a point where Garfield is getting credit cards?  We went from locally scrutinizing individuals to verify if they were capable of paying back their obligations to actually searching for anyone (or thing) that would be willing to sign on a dotted line so the debt could be packaged up into a security and shipped off to Wall Street for speculation.  The collapse in credit card debt reflects a tipping point for the American co

easing?  Much of the spending is happening for the top 1 percent of our country that are largely vested in the too big to fail institutions.  The working and middle class is being slowly dismantled while money flows to the top to protect the profits of the very few banks that control most of the assets in the United States.  Now that trillions of dollars have flowed to the top thanks to working and middle class taxpayers, these banks and the government are turning a blind eye to the public and shutting them out completely by taking away their plastic, kicking people out of homes, and offering a nice consolation of burger flipping jobs.

We are quickly reaching a point where if we do not get our financial house in order as a nation, the national economy might be facing something that is already being experien