Bankruptcies Way Up in October
Yes, people (or shall I say my friends in honor of McCain), Americans are indeed suffering this year when it comes to personal finances and debts that outweigh their income, as evidenced by the latest bankruptcy filings for October, which just trickled in and staggered most people.
This is only vindication for what many economists and strategists have been saying this whole year, that bankruptcies will soar, as home values go down, the 401k savings that people have the majority of invested in the stock market have plummeted, and jobs remain stagnant with pay also remaining on strict budgets and remaining pretty much the same year over year for the past few years.
I know for my job personally, I haven’t seen a raise that’s over 3% in the past three years, and my company is doing ok right now, although it is struggling with some of the economy’s woes and loss os customers and profit just like almost every other company. That doesn’t even keep pace with inflation, so what that means is that even though I’m seeing a percentage increase in my wages, it’s all going right back out the door in increased cost of living for things like gas, heating and electricity bills for my house, and one of the most expensive things lately, groceries.
Most people are in exactly that same boat with me, except they have it worse. Many reasons are that some have gotten in over their heads with a larger mortgage than what they could afford (thanks to the predatory lending practices of many major banks), people have been consuming more and more on credit without a solid plan for paying that credit off month by month and are drowing in the high APR interest that remains every month when the bill is not paid in full, and there are also more companies laying people off in response to the lacking economy and forecasts that are lackluster when it comes to corporate performance and consumerism.
For these reasons, bankruptcy filings went up almost 40% just in October alone, when compared with bankruptcy filings in October of 2007. That’s a huge concern, and will further lend to instability in the economy, but more frightening is the fact that we have already blasted right by the numbers of filings for all of 2007, and we haven’t even concluded the 2008 fiscal year yet, which means we are in for astronomical numbers for bankruptcy filings for the year 2008.
