January 01, 2009
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News: Strapped in Seniors.
With historically low personal bankruptcy rates, our senior citizens are gaining yardage fast. They have become the fastest-growing bankruptcy segment in our population, according to a recent Harvard study called: "The Harvard Consumer Bankruptcy Project". Over the ten-year period, ranging from 1991 till 2001, the rate has jumped 244%. In that closing year of the study (2001), around 82.000 of our seniors were forced into bankruptcy. Almost half of those victims gave ‘medical expenses' as the main reason. While, Mr. Bush looked on and chided those people for being ‘irresponsible', he failed to acknowledge that our nation was, by far, the worst in the industrialized world for out-of-control medical expenses. He didn't, however, seem to have a problem with the fact that these people were having to survive by running up credit card debt. With a soaring 50% increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses during that period, conditions would continue to build momentum ever since, as employers were forced to cut back on health benefits and retirees were losing their retirement packages. Credit card defaults and charge-offs are the only natural consequence. The credit card industry is now expected to face the worst hailstorm of losses in their recorded history.
The image of the ‘affluent retiree' is being shattered -- stolen away after all these years by the greedy and corrupt. Their lifetime of devotion to our country's economic health, by working all those years has left most of them (56%) having only Social Security to rely on. Even that was long on the chopping block by Mr. Bush. The switch from only 42% being totally dependent occurred in the last two years of Mr. Bush's reign (2006). With constant cutbacks in government-sponsored medications, whatever's taken away must be purchased with credit cards. It's all piling up. Medical care is only the half of it. Home repairs, car repairs and all of life's other pressing necessities are also being added to the credit card debt with APR rates as high as 27%.