Can Mounting Personal Debt and Economic Recovery Coexist?By Susan Boskey Reality? According to a recent study released June 8, 2016 by CardHub.com CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou, personal credit-card debt for 2016 is expected to surpass that of the years leading up to the Great Recession of 2008. Here are some of their additional findings. CardHubs projection for 2016 is that, for the first time ever, Americans will collectively hold about $1 trillion dollars in outstanding credit-card balances. Breaking it down, thats approximately $8500 per household, almost exactly what it was in the last quarter of 2007 ($8463 according to the Federal Reserve), just prior to when the bottom fell out of the economy. Does a growing personal-debt bubble mean we are headed for another crash? Logic would tell us that economic recovery and increased personal debt cannot exist at the same time, in the same space. If there really was a recovery, wouldnt households have enough money to at least pay down debt and not grow it? So if youre seeing what Im seeing, you also get the blatant contradiction between an official pronouncement of recovery and the hard evidence of increasing personal debt. The only winners here are the credit card companies raking in an average of 15% interest on money borrowed. The solution for the people, as I see it, is to accept the fact of a downward spiral in the macro economy (due particularly to the failure of incomes in keeping up with the cost-of-living), and learn how to succeed anyway. Go with the flow. How to earn, spend, save and invest today requires rethinking due to moneys systemic loss of value. My research tells me that the everyday person cannot depend on a for-profit financial services industry to have their best interest at heart. Though creative ways to protect you and your family from the ravages of enslaving debt exist, most financial planners probably wont tell you about them because the training and education they receive is a direct reflection of their link to the banking industry. I believe we are on our own in regards to truthfully assessing economic reality, and need to increase our financial IQ in order to consider and apply creative financial strategies capable of establishing long-term financial stability. That is, instead of blindly trusting all of what financial experts encourage us to do. Susan Boskey is author of the book, The Quality Life Plan: 7 Steps to Uncommon Financial Security. After exposing the bottom-line of why more and more families need credit each month just to make ends meet, Susan provides game-changing practical strategies, tactics and templates to help you create a life of greater ease. You can reverse the downward trend of credit and debt while learning how to establish a long-term, debt-free lifestyle; a life that allows you to build both financial wealth and the wealth of well-being midst the challenges of todays economic landscape. To learn more or to purchase the book, please visit her website at http://TheQualityLifePlan.com Susan can customize her strategies and templates for your particular situation and is available to coach you through this process. She can be reached through her website. Tear up the credit cards. Old school saving is the best answer. Fractal banks are heartless. The entire system needs to be swept away and a more humane system needs to be put into place. The world should reset all debts to 0. Asking the banking sector to limit the amount of credit it issues is like asking a Mexican drug cartel to limit the amount of drugs it smuggles. 