CNN Money: America's Money: In their own words

[krakknisse]

This isn't actually my own first hand report, but checking in on CNN Money, I found the following report:
America's Money: In their own words (http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0803/gallery.real_stories/index.html)

I didn't want to clog the "news", but I think this qualifies as a first hand report. My thoughts: oh my god, poor Americans! I hope it never will come to this in Northern Europe, though I fear it may. Read it and weep, or read it and gloat.

[c1ue]

3/4 of them are oops - we made a stupid.

most of the rest are clearly not long on the planning or consequences department.

the physician has a brain.

the socially conscious person - that one is sad.

[zoog]

This isn't actually my own first hand report, but checking in on CNN Money, I found the following report:
America's Money: In their own words (http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0803/gallery.real_stories/index.html)

I didn't want to clog the "news", but I think this qualifies as a first hand report. My thoughts: oh my god, poor Americans! I hope it never will come to this in Northern Europe, though I fear it may. Read it and weep, or read it and gloat.

As I read the first few I thought, what ties all these people together is they were directly employed in the housing bubble. No wonder they are hurting. Most of the rest bought houses they couldn't really afford, but as the list goes on the stories do become more diverse.

Lack of education is a real problem in this country, IMO. Just general education, to start with, but specifically, most people simply have no idea how to manage their finances. Some people here say "well they should have known better, it's their own fault", and others are more sympathetic. My view is a little of both, but the fact is, genuine, useful, truly prudent information about personal finances is not sitting out there in the open, especially compared to the barrage of bad advice from credit cards and other advertisers. You have to put forth some effort, and therein lies the point of criticism from some. But if you don't even know the library exists, how would it ever occur to you that they have books there? An exaggeration, to make my point.