Here�s the �worrisome� amount of debt Canadians owe on their stuff

Sure, but averge net worth of households is north of 400K, so I don't know what these worrywarts are always on about.

Yea...nothing says "it's all good" when you have to sell off your assets to pay your Visa.

The situation is exactly what the banks want it to be. Hammer people as hard as they can with high interest on debts they can't pay off but then make it practically impossible to fold debts into consolidation plans or renegotiated mortgages that would leave them with one reasonable monthly payment to make. The banks always win, no different than a casino or a loan-shark who sends leg-breakers out every once in a while to send a message.

If one has a steady job then the smart play is to declare, or at least threaten to declare, personal bankruptcy. The mortgage is left out of the bankruptcy, the debtor has to carefully manage the rest of their income for food and utilities, but the other creditors have to accept what the court dictates on paying out of the other debts. They lose their usurious interest rates and have to suck it up on a payment plan that treats them all equally. They really hate this because their power of intimidation and threats is essentially taken away.

You can only pull that stunt once, without having legal problems. Pretty sleazy if you have a decent net worth to try to pull it too. Remember too that this is net worth, ie those consumer loans are already factored in, and people still average out very well. If you can't pay off 20k but have 400k in net assets, you're doing something seriously wrong.

Of course there's a subset of people who are underwater. But these reports aren't looking at them, just the overall picture. The overall picture seems to be pretty rosy, despite the chicken littles.

If your only asset is the equity in your house, well, guess you bought to much house to be able to afford all the consumer crap you're wracking up debt for - time to make a choice. Funny how I have to explain this to the pay your own way Stevo fan club.

Man, in the US many are beyond knee deep in CC debt.

My point was that the banks go into full twat-mode when you try to consolidate into one payment. If they're going to make things that much more difficult for people trying to stabilize their finances then they deserve to lose the interest they leech if someone gets back at them through bankruptcy.



Right, because the greatest economic era in Canadian history was when the Trudeau Liberals had interest rates upwards to 30% that prevented most people from being able to borrow anything at all. And my mind must be shot because I just can't remember St. Chretien encouraging people to save-save-save during the rocketing economy of the Clinton era. Jesus Christ, Andy, leave the halcyon days of the 1970's behind already. They're long over and they weren't that fucking great anyway.

While doing a handstand.

$21k sounds like a lot, but if you get a loan to buy a new car or truck, your debt is probably going to be higher than all by itself.

Right, because the greatest economic era in Canadian history was when the Trudeau Liberals had interest rates upwards to 30% that prevented most people from being able to borrow anything at all. And my mind must be shot because I just can't remember St. Chretien encouraging people to save-save-save during the rocketing economy of the Clinton era. Jesus Christ, Andy, leave the halcyon days of the 1970's behind already. They're long over and they weren't that fucking great anyway.

Your response bears no connection to what i wrote. (my point was really aimed more at OTI's idiotic post) It doesn't matter who's running the country or what the interest rates are. If all your net worth is in your house equity, but you're running up credit card debt to finance your lifestyle, then you either have too much house for your income, or need to cut back your consumer purchases. Take your pick. No blaming the banks, just take responsibility for that decision. which again, I thought was the hallmark of the tightie rightie stand on your own two feeters. Even if the anti-Christ is running the country.

It's the average. I carry no consumer debt, so that would let somebody else out there carry 42k already. But again, by that same average, that person would have 400k (or as a family) anyway, net after that consumer debt. So on average, people are doing very well. Especially in BC.

Just waiting for interest rates to rise, then we will see some shit.. again.

Maybe. tho interest rates will only rise if the economy heats up too much and BOC gets worried about runaway inflation. Right now the worry is more about deflation. In some European countries, banks are giving money away at negative interest rates, trying to prime the pump.

No Andy, it doesn't work that way.

The U.S. economy is moving along, sort of. As it gets going, money will move out from the bond
markets.

That will trigger a rise in bond interest rates, which will move the BoC, and then the big 6.

What the Canadian economy is doing will have very little influence.

well, we'll see. i doubt the US economy is strong enough to pull the rest of the world along anymore. Everybody is still hoping for China, they seem to have their own problems. So interest rates rising significantly seems not to be on the near horizon. And, in the 90's the US economy was humming while ours was sputtering, So our economy doesn't have a lot of influence on the world, but our interest rates are set at home. Personally, I think waiting for "normal" to return might be a mugs game. With the destruction of the middle class, there just aren't the well off consumers around to spend our way to boom times anymore. Guess the 1% has figured out they can do very well even without the 99%, so fuck em.