Yes that's correct. The United States debt load of $15.2 trillion is now more than the value of all goods and services put out by the United States in one year.
 
To put it in simpler terms, if you made $50,000 a year and had 60,000 in debt your debt to income ratio would not be good. In fact depending upon the interest rate, it is most likely that a person would never pay off this debt.

Traditionally, if you have a mortgage, that property would be increasing in value. This is not the case now. Essentially, you've got what you got and that's it.
 
The party is over. It's time to buckle down and be responsible with our money. If you would like to discuss this concept and how to do it, please give me a call.

Yes, I've been in the business of helping people who are in debt for many years, but am I the only one that felt the economy just could not sustain this fictitious growth.  How can a nation be built on a government and its people that are all in great debt?  I just couldn't understand when I went to Bank of American to cash a check and they said "would you be interested in a home equity loan?"  I said for how much and they said "how much do you want?"  At this point, I knew something was terribly wrong.  Of course, the housing market soon therafter collapsed.  Now, so many people are "under water" with their mortgages.  Once again, greed is the root of the evil here. 

Consumer groups are dismayed that President Barack Obama wants Congress to make it easier for debt collectors to call the cellphones of Americans who are late on their student loans.  Currently, it is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for a debt collection agency to automatically dial cell phone numbers and play pre-recorded messages.  The administration believes that allowing collectors to "robo-call," and/or use pre-recorded messages on cellphones to contact those who owe the government money will contribute to the reduction of the Federal deficit under the $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan the president submitted to congress.

The services DES provides are based on the principles and practices of the National Consumer Law Center.  "Enabling robo-calls (to cellphones) is just going to lead to more harassment and abuse, and it's not going to help the government collect more money," said Lauren Saunders of the NCLC.

I couldn't agree more.  We know from experience that people *want* to pay their debt.  If they had the money, they *would* pay their debts.  People are out of jobs, have had hours cut back, have had businesses fail and all sorts of secondary fallout from the economic downturn.  Harassing people and using up their cellphone minutes is not going to make a difference.

Collection agencies, not surprisingly, are in favor of the proposed change, citing the fact that more and more Americans no longer have landlines and that allowing automatic dialing would make their job more efficient.  Collection agencies would like to be able to use automatic dialing for *all* debt collection.  Even if they collected no more debt than they currently do, it would enable them to cut costs and increase profits on what is already a very profitable business.

Legislation that would allow collectors to robocall cellphones for all debt collection purposes was introduced in the House last week.  If you are against this proposed legislation, please contact your Representative and let him or her know how you feel.