[bluebarbet]

This applies more to the USA than to Europe, where "credit cards" are in fact mostly debit cards (cursory research says 71% vs 26% in America), and ordinary people tend not to be up to their necks in consumer debt. Anecdotally, I've never used an actual credit card in my life.

[pembrook]

Data from the IMF says European households hold a similar level of debt if not more (especially the case in northern Europe):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...

The US used to be an outlier in this regard if you look back to 2000, but over the past 25+ years American households have stayed pretty much the same while their European counterparts have grown debt substantially.

[bluebarbet]

It is almost entirely mortgage debt backed by the collateral of housing.

[pembrook]

Not the most productive asset to be leveraging, especially in rapidly declining birth rate countries, no?

Meanwhile, while headline credit card interest rates in the US look insane (like 20%+), in reality loss-adjusted yield actually realized by lenders and paid by consumers (after renegotiated settlements, bankruptcies, payment plans, etc) is less than half that.

You can look at the realized return on personal credit lending on companies balance sheets, its basically like 3.7%. Maybe a few percent more return than what a 30 year mortgage lender can expect going forward (now that we're returning to post-GFC 'normalized' interest rates).

[hvb2]

Over 10% of interest is still a lot... And the fact that you get to that rate through settlements and bankruptcies is a good indicator of how much of a stranglehold debt has over a typical American household.

And it's fine if you don't think a home is a bad investment. I think most people do and so far that has worked out almost perfectly. That doesn't mean anything for the future, but there are no guarantees in investing. In a lot of places a mortgage gets you tax breaks too, as opposed to other credit.