Today I was sitting with the Pristine content team and trying to figure out why are we going to see the biggest financial recession ever. Bigger than the one we faced in the year 2008. Definitely bigger than the Great Depression of 1929 that the United States had faced.
So, what’s the problem with have Debt management in first world countries? Well, a lot of the growth in such countries is fueled by increase in the GDP (which is primarily a factor of how much the citizens can consume). Linked with consumerism is the problem of having a limited income. So most organizations think how do I maximize the share of this limited income?
The correct way is to maximize the pocket share, or the mind share within this limited expendable income that an individual has. Apart from that, there are other ways … ways such as Credit! So do not pay me the entire amount now, pay me in instalments … 30 days free trial (which loosely translates into a 30 day credit period), and so on. Credit cards enable us to do that, loans, overdraft accounts … essentially all these instruments help a consumer to spend MORE. At the end of the day when this expenditure has to be met with payments, either the person defaults (in which case this debt is bad debts!) or the person raises another loan to pay off that loan.
What banks do at the other side is that when they recognize such bad debts, they try to sell such debts as forward cash liabilities to other banks. Based on these you have a new instrument which is called a Credit Derivative .. you will remember the CDO crisis of 2007-2008. The culprit is debt or lack of Debt Management.
The problem stems from the fact that Debt management in the first developed countries was not done in a proper fashion. Typically, countries in Europe such as UK, Germany, etc are so developed that a lot of individuals are running in the negative all the time.
But things are changing, in fact I am informed that the debt management in such countries is now being managed by third party agencies, for example, click here for UK debt management. The good part about having such agencies is that individuals can now de-risk themselves. So much so that the UK government is hoping to lean on the taxpayers to lend the government money to pull themselves out from the Euro-Debt crisis.
Interestingly enough, what can be done to reduce future debt crisis is to start cash utilization and stop unnecessary usage of the credit instruments. A reality check on consumerism also needs to be done, which is threatening to take the economies of most developed countries down. In the short run consumerism is definitely a helpful boost in the arm for the country’s economy, but in the longer run it has to be curbed.