Debt Like Crazy

Don't worry. I'm not talking about me. I just have your standard American debt in the form of college loans. It's one of the reasons I'm here.

I just want to make a small observation. I ask a lot of Koreans about how they afford their lifestyles. Many are living with their parents, bit those parents own pretty darn nice condo-style homes, at least one car (and in more cases two or three), and they say they pay for their kids to go to college and travel frequently.

I know somethings are cheap over here. But I questioned it because either things would have to be practically free, or the people would all need to making millions (I mean that in dollars, of course).

I was told that credit card and debt issues weren't a problem over here. However, as I told my parents the other day, I'm always skeptical. If a Korean tells you something, you'd better double and triple check it. It's like getting information off Wikipedia. It can be entertaining and somewhat informative, but it's rarely correct.

Well, thanks to the economic collapse, the Korean newspapers have no choice but to run stories about how bad the credit crisis is here.

Here's an article on it.

Of course, read that with a large grain of salt and some Soju. Americans like to complain about their newspapers and whatnot by lumping it altogether as "media", but the Korean media is just so unreliable. Most articles have points written about with absolutely zero attribution.

Anyway, the credit stuff is pretty bad here. The article says people owe 43 million won on average. That equals $43,000. I'm not sure how that compares to Americans, but it's certainly no small number.

Anyway, it's just another example of Koreans telling me one thing that turns out to be the total opposite.