A Quote by Michael Hudson
There are two definitions of deflation. Most people think of it simply as prices going down. But debt deflation is what happens when people have to spend more and more of their income to carry the debts that they've run up - to pay their mortgage debt, to pay the credit card debt, to pay student loans.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
The current U.S. and Eurozone depression isn't because of China. It's because of domestic debt deflation. Commodity prices and consumer spending are falling, mainly because consumers have to pay most of their wages to the FIRE sector for rent or mortgage payments, student loans, bank and credit card debt, plus over 15 percent FICA wage withholding for Social Security and Medicare actually, to enable the government to cut taxes on the higher income brackets, as well income and sales taxes.
So we are in for years of debt deflation. That means that people have to pay so much debt service for mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank loans and other obligations
that they have less to spend on goods and services. So markets shrink. New investment and employment fall off, and the economy is falls into a downward spiral.
But credit card debt is unsecured debt, which means if you get in trouble and cannot pay off your credit card, you can discharge it in bankruptcy. What are they going do to you? If you're in a financial position to just methodically pay off both credit card and student loans, pay them all.
A consolidation makes sense only if you can lower your overall interest rate. Many people consolidate by taking out a home equity line loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC), refinancing a mortgage, or taking out a personal loan. They then use this cheaper debt to pay off more expensive debt, most frequently credit card loans, but also auto loans, private student loans, or other debt.
Absolutely pay off credit card debt. If you're not getting a match in your 401(k) and you've got credit card debt, you've got to get yourself out of credit card debt. When you get out of credit card debt, your credit score goes up and interest starts to go down.
More and more money is being extracted from of the production and consumption economy to pay the FIRE sector. That's what causes debt deflation and shrinks markets. If you pay the banks, you have less to spend on goods and services.
When you default on a secured debt, the creditor takes the asset that backs up that debt. When you convert credit card debt to mortgage debt, you are securing that credit card debt with your home. That's a risky proposition.
If you have credit card debt and credit card companies continue to close down the cards, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if they raise your interest rates to 32 percent? That's five times higher than what your kid is going to pay in interest on a student loan. Get rid of your credit card debt.
People tend to think that paying a debt is like going out and buying a car, buying more food or buying more clothes. But it really isn't. When you pay a debt to the bank, the banks use this money to lend out to somebody else or to yourself. The interest charges to carry this debt go up and up as debt grows.
First, pay off your high-interest-rate debt. If you have student loan debt - that's low interest rate; that has a tax benefit - you can leave that out. A mortgage can be an OK one. Credit card debt is poison. That needs to be paid off right away.
When there's deflation, it means that although most markets are shrinking and people have less to spend, the 1% that hold the 99% in debt are getting all the growth in wealth and income. Deflation means that income is being transferred to the 1%, that is, to the creditors and property owners.
If you have to pay about forty to forty-three percent of your income for housing, you also have to pay fifteen percent of your paycheck for the FICA for Social Security wage withholding. You have to pay medical care, you have to pay the banks for your credit card debt, student loans. Then you only have about twenty-five or thirty-five percent, maybe one-third of your salary to buy goods and services. That's all.
There's more student debt than credit card debt! Everywhere I go, I run into young people trying to build careers while they keep shelling out money on their education loans. If the economy is looking for a new generation of home-buyers, I can't imagine they'll get it from these folks.
The United States and Europe are in a state of debt deflation, where people and businesses have to pay banks instead of spending their income on goods and services. So markets shrink, sales and profits fall, and the stock market turns down.
Bad debt is debt that makes you poorer. I count the mortgage on my home as bad debt, because I'm the one paying on it. Other forms of bad debt are car payments, credit card balances, or other consumer loans.
The most important loan to pay is your student loan. It's more important than your mortgage, car and credit card payments. You cannot discharge student loan debt in the majority of cases.
Related Authors
Allen W. Wood Quotes
American
Professor
Clayton Christensen Quotes
American
Professor
Glenn Reynolds Quotes
American
Professor
Gordon S. Wood Quotes
American
Professor
Helene Cixous Quotes
French
Professor
Jeffrey Pfeffer Quotes
American
Professor
Jerry A. Coyne Quotes
American
Professor
Richard A. Falk Quotes
American
Professor
Robert S. Kaplan Quotes
American
Professor
Ruth Simmons Quotes
American
Professor
Seyyed Hossein Nasr Quotes
Iranian
Professor