Personal Debt Crisis In the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Personal Debt Crisis In the UK - Essay Example Seeing how things have gone south economically worldwide, one can only hope that governments, the global financial industry and more importantly, the private individual had better get their acts together. Citizens Advice Chief Executive David Harker cited the CAB statistics as "worrying evidence" that a large and growing number of people will continue to pay the price, and will become overwhelmed by serious debt impacting adversely on their lives. He further stressed that even more worrying are the "signs that people are struggling not only to repay credit, but also to afford day-to-day essentials" (CAB, 2007). According to a study that analyzed the impact of debt advice in the UK, there seemed to be three different types of debt that can be attributed to the following causes: changing circumstances, poor money management, and creditor behaviour. Changing circumstances typically included unemployment or a change in employment, illness, bereavement and/or separation from a partner. Although the factors which brought about these changes varied, the changes were commonly interlinked and their effect was generally the same: the difficulty interviewees experienced having to manage on a reduced income caused them to fall into debt or exacerbated an existing debt (Pleasence, P. et. al, 2006). Poor money management on the other hand is largely due to a complacent attitude towards financial literacy. Finally, the so-called "rogue" creditor behavior or the unscrupulous and borderline-usurious terms and policies that take advantage of the financially disadvantaged sectors of society. Even then, no si ngular universal definition as to how the explosive debt problem came to be can be arrived at by financial experts in both the government and private sectors. Thus, the challenge in coming up with the best strategy for reliving and controlling the debt crisis continues to be a heavily-contested area of study to date. Rising Interest