A lot is being made of household debt rising to all time highs, which is true, but within the proper context of disposable income it’s actually low. The truth is that the American consumer can hold a lot more debt. This is the latest data we have on that.
You're not far from one of the reasons for that growing consumer debt. Growing up in the States when I was young...I don't remember any teenage friends of mine having credit cards and I do not remember credit card companies targeting teenagers. Cash was king for us when we were teenagers. Today, it seems many parents give their teenagers access to credit cards and I've seen teenagers targeted by credit card companies in the mail with outrageous interest rate agreements and crazy high late penalty fees. Thus, it's the fault of Parents and Credit Card companies. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/credit-card-debt-young-people Given their modest financial resources, young people often find it difficult to build savings and may accrue credit card debt to pay for bills or emergency expenses. They have trouble repaying loans. Young people are more likely to have unpaid auto or retail loan debt. https://www.aecf.org/blog/how-policymakers-can-address-the-youth-debt-crisis wrbtrader
You're actually both very far from the main reason for growing consumer debt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury "Judaism Main article: Loans and interest in Judaism The book of Deuteronomy prohibits Jews from charging interest except when making loans to foreigners. Typically, a loan is considered a form of Tzedakah or Ṣedaqah (Hebrew: צדקה [ts(e)daˈka]), a Hebrew word meaning "righteousness" but commonly used to signify charity. (This concept of "charity" differs from the modern Western understanding of "charity". The latter is typically understood as a spontaneous act of goodwill and a marker of generosity; tzedakah is an ethical obligation.) In the Rabbinic period, the practice of charging interest to non-Jews has been restricted to cases when there is no other means of subsistence.[24] "If we nowadays allow interest to be taken from non-Jews, it is because there is no end to the yoke and the burden king and ministers impose on us, and everything we take is the minimum for our subsistence, and anyhow we are condemned to live in the midst of the nations and cannot earn our living in any other manner except by money dealings with them; therefore the taking of interest is not to be prohibited" (Tos. to BM 70b S.V. tashikh).[25]" This is a age old tool. You're just learning about it today.
Corporate profits hit a record high in 2023. https://thehill.com/business/456163...economy-boomed-in-fourth-quarter-of-2023/amp/
I prefer to look at the statistics of self-employment in the United States...about +10% are self-employed and making about 85k per year. Yet, the stats are all over the map depending on the source that self-employed people had 3 - 8 paid employees. About 15 million are self-employed... providing jobs to about 30 million Americans. I don't know a lot about a new rule by the Biden/Harris administration that will impact contractors, freelancers, and other types of self-employment but apparently, it will increase the the risk of a lot of these self-employed workers losing their jobs... It impacts employers about whom they can hire. https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-l...sing-work-under-new-biden-administration-rule Yet, it's not just an issue for the Biden/Harris administration...the Trump administration had something similar and Trump has never been a fan of the self-employment workers...Trump leaves them out of several key tax breaks. I read recently that both parties had made a mistake and left out key tax issues for the self-employed. With that said, considering this is a forum for traders, has anyone done the numbers for small business taxes, capital gains taxes (long-term and short-term)... Better under Biden or Trump? P.S. I pay taxes in another country. wrbtrader
Me sharing corporate profits was a continuation on a previous post about the overall strength of the economy within the context of a reply to post that was claiming market gains were limited to AI companies. Technology is making people able to be self employed at a greater rate. People will take advantage as it suits them. It kind of fits into the whole work from home disruption.