Resist!

Resist!

Is it just me or do you too detect an upsurge in the financial media attempting to put a smiley face on U.S. massive indebtedness...?

This week alone I've come across 3 amusing articles from popular publications discussing managing personal debt.

Marketwatch.com, wholly-owned subsidiary of financial media powerhouse, Dow-Jones & Company, is first at bat with...

"New Grads Should Start Saving for Retirement Now"

Their advice for the graduate escaping college with an average $19,200 of debt...? Don't even think about unloading that albatross using your newly minted paychecks. Instead of debt payoff, they suggest even a little 401(k) saving will grow big over the next 30 years or so.

They offer the usual arguments... tax benefits, matching contributions, and compound interest over a long period of time. All good reasons to MAXIMIZE 401(k) contributions. If you're sharing your paycheck with debt, young grad, you're going to have a hard time maximizing contributions.

Next up is SmartMoney.com, a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones & Company -- hmmm, I think I see a pattern here --and Hearst SM Partnership. I tried googling "Hearst SM Partnership"and the only references returned were to a joint publishing venture with Dow Jones & Company. Their salvo...

"When Credit-Card Debt Is Better Than Home-Equity Debt"

recommends trading Home-Equity Loan debt for credit-card debt. Sort of a reverse consolidation loan. As quoted from this article...

"Turning home-equity debt into credit-card debt sounds like a dumb move. It's conventional wisdom that if you have credit-card debt, you want to consolidate it into a home-equity loan...To do the reverse goes totally against what we've been taught about being prudent."

You can read the pros and cons for yourself. I was more interested in the underlying message... at one time you were "smart" to use your home to pay for things charged on a credit-card. Now that this has revealed itself as lunacy, the new "smart" thing is to flirt with credit-card quicksand.

Curiously, it's not smart to simply pay all of these things off and get out of this debt shell game.

Finally, and again from SmartMoney.com, we have...

"Being Debt-Free Isn't Always All It's Cracked Up to Be"

about the stresses and strains of owning your life and owing no one.

This article allows readers to post comments. One reader says it best...

"Only in America can living debt free be a bad thing."

It's obvious, isn't it? They're attempting to manipulate your common sense...

Resist!