When we talk about Americans barely into adulthood who are saddled with debilitating levels of debt, the conversation is almost always about student loan debt. But there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that today’s young adults are also drowning in credit-card debt — and that many of them will take this debt to their graves.
interest rates
The Verdict Is In: Tackle Smaller Debts First
Financial experts have long debated the best strategy for paying down debt. Some advise paying off debt in the order of APR, taking on the loan with the highest interest rate first. With this approach, you reduce the amount spent …
5 Smart Strategies to Eliminate Your Credit Card Debt
Minimum payment due, reads the box on your credit-card statement. What an enticing idea: Pay a small amount and you’re off the hook for the whole bill—for a while, anyway. Alas, as the more than 45% of Americans who carry a …
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How Barclays Loaded the LIBOR Dice
The LIBOR scandal unfolding across the Atlantic has huge ramifications for American consumers.
5 Smart Strategies for Managing Your Debt
Consumers have been good about paying down their debt. But they stink at managing what debt remains. Here are five ways to keep control.
Interest Rates So Low Even the Founding Fathers Would Gawk
We’ve been hearing that interest rates are “historically low” for some time now. But how historic are we talking? Even Thomas Jefferson would have been surprised to see the most respected debt issuer in the world paying just …
Is the Fed to Blame for JPMorgan’s $2 Billion Blowup?
The JPMorgan $2 billion-trading-loss story is nearly a week old, and the news has predictably gone through the various spin cycles of the political right and left. Initially, progressives pounced on the loss as reason to …
Stop Fighting Over Interest Rates — There’s a Better Way For Congress To Fix the Student Debt Crisis
Interest rates on federal subsidized Stafford loans were cut from 6.8% to 3.4% during the current economic downturn. This “temporary” reduction is scheduled to expire this summer, halfway through an election year. With
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College Students Are Credit Card Dunces
Even after lawmakers made it harder for banks to give college kids credit cards, credit card debt is still a big problem on U.S. campuses. A new study pinpoints the simple, frustrating reason why: Students don’t know anything …
Students, Your Loan Interest Rate Is About to Double
Prepare yourself: on July 1, as many as 8 million college students will see their interest rates on federally subsidized student loans double, from 3.4% to 6.8%. According to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, that increase …
Bank Launches an Experiment in Credit-Card Democracy
What if financial services were more like American Idol, say, where you had the choice of different options and could vote for which ones sound best? It’s a weird idea, but one bank is in fact applying this model to a new credit card.
Big Banks Accused of Manipulating Key Interest Rates
Just what banking industry needs – another scandal. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Canada’s Competition Bureau is investigating several multinational banks regarding allegations that traders attempted to manipulate a key benchmark interest rate that is used to set prices on a wide array of financial products from …
