There was a question from SN user from Europe that could be rephrased as:
How can Americans be this stupid to go into so much debt?
As a non-US person this also baffled me, but it's not the people - the US banking system is set up to trick as many people as possible into debt. This is true especially in comparison with European banks.
How US banking system shifts people into debt
- the default is essentially that everyone gets a credit card (they sell you on "get 3% cashback on every purchase" or some discounts)
- to increase your "credit score" (needed if you want to get a mortgage or rent a place), you need to own at least 5 credit cards for many years and show that you keep borrowing and repaying every month (otherwise your credit score is lowered)
- you also get new credit card offers in a mail every week
- it's hard to set up auto payments on the credit card (so the person have to remember to pay any bills)
- it's hard or impossible to set up some notification that your borrowed credit is getting close to money you have in the associated bank account (in the online banking the numbers are usually far from each other on the page and looking differently, sometimes many clicks away)
- it's possible and rather easy to pay off a debt of one credit card with another credit card (and essentially delay your debt by a year, but accumulating overall)
- many companies offer their own "rewards" credit cards and use it as discount card (like every airline, bigger malls and shops, etc.) and they try to upsell you when you e.g. buy a new pair of jeans
- and finally you can live on debt for many years without any issue.
So ultimately the system is set up in a way that "not falling into debt" requires continuous attention and manual work, whereas the easy default is to get into debt over time.
Defaults matter. Everywhere.