The American Dream - Life Full of Debt

Pat who is a friend of mine has been blogging about the struggle to live free from debt and his experience with Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I have really enjoyed reading reading about what he is learning and how he is struggling to break the cycle of debt. For those of you who have no debt you can just skip this blog, but if you are a normal American who is feeling burdened by debt I suggest you check out his blog Burn The Ships

Here's an excerpt from Pat's blog about the current status of affluent debt-loaded American society.

The Good Life (On Credit), Staggering Stats
There are over 1.3 billion credit cards in circulation in America.
The total American consumer debt is more than 2.7 trillion.
The credit card industry takes in $43 billion per year in additional, unexpected fees from the consumer, such as late payment, over-the-limit, and balance transfer fees. Late fees alone bring in more than $11 billion.
The average household credit card debt has increased approximately 167% in the past 17 years.
It would take over 13 years to pay off the average credit card balance if only making minimum monthly payments of 4% at an average interest rate of 15%.
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge for another,if you have been trapped by what you said,ensnared by the words of your mouth,then do this, my son, to free yourself,since you have fallen into your neighbor's hands:Go and humble yourself;press your plea with your neighbor!Allow no sleep to your eyes,no slumber to your eyelids.Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,like a bird from the snare of the fowler.(Proverbs 6:1-5, New International Version)

The stats come from FPU participants manual.