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Cheap credit blamed for sharp rise in middle-class debt

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Published Date: 19 May 2008
THE number of middle-class families struggling to make ends meet has increased substantially, with debt advice agencies overwhelmed by appeals for help from households in affluent areas of the country.
The rise in financial problems among the professional classes, disclosed by two leading debt-advice agencies yesterday, is being driven by rising inflation, the increased cost of living and the downturn in the housing market. Transact, a financial-inclusion organisation that provides support and training for advice agencies, is blaming years of cheap credit with people overstretching themselves by borrowing more than they can afford to pay back.

Transact said professionals and homeowners in affluent areas are now struggling to cope.

They include a retired bank manager from Sussex with an annual income of £40,000 and £110,000 of debt across 20 credit cards and loans.





The full article contains 148 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 19 May 2008 12:38 AM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Consumer debt
 
1

911 was an inside job.,

19/05/2008 07:40:30
Not much sympathy really. I'm firmly middleclass, and I recognised that something was wrong a few years ago. I got out of debt, paid off my mortgage at the age of 36, stockpiled a year's supply of food, bought gold and silver etc. People ridiculed me for being a conspiracy 'theorist' and a right-wing UKIP nut. At least I don't have to worry about the credit crunch that has been engineered by the central banks.

Wealth isn't money, and wealth isn't lost during a recession/depression. Think about it for a while.
2

Mrs Numpty,

East Sussex 19/05/2008 08:38:55
The problem is of their own making. I want so I shall have, I will pay later well the day has come when you have to pay.
3

Alternative (High Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 19/05/2008 09:50:40
#1:

I did much the same.

Previous stupid labour administrations used to borrow money to waste on their extravagence, leaving the next (usually Tory) administration to pick up the pieces and get tagged as the bad boys, leaving things sweet after 5 years for stupid labour to come in and mess everything up again.

This time stupid labour have encouraged the private individual to do the borrowing in order to prop up their wasteful, ineffective policies. Well I hope that the public have learned a lesson. NEVER support stupid labour ever again. Let's consign them to the history books for good.
4

Paddi,

19/05/2008 12:14:48
I’m not in debt but I do have sympathy for these people. They were sold the idea that they could lead a champagne life on a beer income by Brown and his band of merry spinners. Borrow all you want, at cheap rates and the party's going on forever. Sane, educated, intelligent people being suckered in by the government. And now the brown stuff has hit the fan all we hear is that it’s the fault of US subprime lending......Nulabour take us for idiots. they take the glory on the way up , an economic boom built on massive govt and personal debt and on the way down its anyone else’s fault. Labour are and always have been the party of economic mismanagement, tax and spend doesn’t work, so why do they always revert to type??? Brown has also put on hold changes to parliamentary pension changes, the runes suggest this is because he and the rest of the parliamentary labour party know the game's up, who would wish to become the next labour leader ahead of the worst drubbing in their history??? The two worst Prime Minsters this country has ever had, one following the other.

to quote Oliver Cromwell

“you have been sat to long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, i say, and let us have done with you. In the name of god, go!.”
5

hertscot,

19/05/2008 15:33:27
#1 and #3, I am also firmly middle class and debt free, the only people to blame for personal debt are those who expouse the 'me me me', so loved by the tories/ukip/bnp with whom you both seem to agree. It's just a shame that the Labour Party couldn't reverse the mind manipulations employed by the bitch Thatcher and her henchmen, who declared that there is no society, sorry but there is and it is collapsing because of the years of tory bred selfishness.

You reap what you sow!
6

911 was an inside job.,

19/05/2008 15:41:19
#4

"...they could lead a champagne life on a beer income... Sane, educated, intelligent people..."

I can't understand how anyone could think that they could live off more than they earn. Ok, Gordon's understanding of numbers doesn't go much further than 1+1=2, and Labour is criminal, but surely people have to take responsibility for their own actions. There are people who've genuinely been victims of GB's dodgy economics, but many others have re-mortgaged, got credit cards, store cards etc to live it up for a few years.

Ah, maybe it is making sense after all. The brainless idiots who thought they could go on exotic holidays, drive new cars and live in big detatched houses using borrowed money must've been the same people who voted NuLabour into power.

Now that their 'things can only get better', Fabian Socialist dream has crashed, NuLab's core voters will expect the taxpayer to make it all better.

Socialism is a wonderful thing when there are plenty of middeclass taxpayers to squeeze.

7

911 was an inside job.,

19/05/2008 15:55:57
#5 eh? Blimey, how did 11 years of NuLabour's tax-squander-tax-squander-squander-squander-tax suddenly become Maggies fault? She left Downing Street in 1991!

The BNP are nastly little National Socialist thugs, so I can't speak for them, and I no longer support the limp wristed eco-Tories.

For your information, UKIP doesn't espouse 'me me me'. Most UKIP members are switched on individuals who don't like to see £Bns of our money paid to an unelected and unwanted euro-club which constantly tells us how we should live our lives. Many of us have had the sense to live within our means, so how does that make us selfish? That's NuLabour double think.
8

Alternative (High Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 19/05/2008 17:35:43
#5:

"...It's just a shame that the Labour Party couldn't reverse the mind manipulations employed by the bitch Thatcher..."

Margaret Thatcher built the economy on actual hard cash---whether or not you agree with the "greed" or "no-society" tags is neither here nor there. She encouraged the BUILDING of wealth.

That is vastly different to the Labour party building the economy on debt, whilst tacitly encouraging people to BORROW wealth.

There is no doubt that an economy build on substance is going to fare a lot better in times of crisis than one built on tick.
9

boudica,

Glasgow 19/05/2008 18:28:53
Alternitive ..
Maggie was responsible for the original Me , Me , Me Generation ...Remember the Yuppies?, well they are probably now the same Middle Classes who have landed themselves in the sh_t now and are running up big phonebills bills whilst swallowing half pints of vino calling all the Debt Releif Agencies ..as they say what goes around comes around ..she is also to blame for the Council House Shortages too ..
10

ebbi,

19/05/2008 19:13:15
cheap politicians are better blamed than the public.
bank of england is a private bank and its owners do not care what happens to this people and their future as long as the continue to make billions from the public which have and will very successfully.
11

ebbi,

spain 19/05/2008 19:13:25
cheap politicians are better blamed than the public.
bank of england is a private bank and its owners do not care what happens to this people and their future as long as the continue to make billions from the public which have and will very successfully.
12

Rod,

Champfleurie Estate 19/05/2008 19:53:58
11 / 12 > bank of england is a private bank

No it isn't. The Bank of England Act of 1946 took the bank into public ownership. The Bank has often been used as an instrument of government policy and was only in the recent past permitted the freedom to set base rate subject to certain policy directives, principal of which is inflation.
13

Rod,

Champfleurie Estate 19/05/2008 20:01:29
1 > Not much sympathy really.

Nor I! I have seen too many people smartarsing their way through life on a sea of credit. There is always a day of reckoning and I have no sympathy for those whose current difficulties have been self-inflicted.
It is time that a very robust and searching interview preceded the granting of all credit. It should also be made abundantly clear that the granting of a credit card or personal loan is not a right.
14

John Blackley,

Florida 19/05/2008 20:11:41
Not much "There, but for the grace of God, go I" around today. Must be a Monday thing.

Yep, all of those people did make bad decisions and they alone hold the responsibility for the consequences. Doesn't stop me for feeling some sympathy though. I've made bad decisions and paid for them too. Got a lot older and a tiny bit wiser and don't make those kind of decisions any more.

One thing written above is true, for me: It used to be much, much harder to get credit than it is now and I can't help feeling that the lenders bear at least a tiny bit of the blame for these peoples' problems.
15

911 was an inside job.,

19/05/2008 21:34:11
"The BoE is priThe shareholders of Federal Reserve, part of the same group of elite families that owns the bank of England, created the IMF and World bank to siphon government funds. Then they effectively steal the real assets of the third world countries that take their loans in some cases at 42% interest. These global loan sharks secure the water, power and roads which are then handed over to private, piratical, letter of mark companies."

http://www.infowars.net/articles/november2007/201107Economic.htm
16

Paddi,

19/05/2008 22:05:59
#16, you probably believe in UFO's and the little people too
17

911 was an inside job.,

20/05/2008 08:08:31
#17 Ooh, UFOs, conspiracy theories. We're a nutty bunch of people. You don't want to be like us. You should go out and spend some more money on your credit cards. Treat yourself to somethng expensve. Government and central banks want you to have it all.
18

rohan,

alaska 03/06/2008 07:31:53
well i had gone through your article and i felt it nice and it is been forwarded to my coulouges.thank you for your post
-------------------
rohan
Best Credit Card Debt resource Online. Don't be a victim. Stop credit card debt now. We can help.
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