Debt Trapped ~ US Millions Living in the Red...

Benedict Carey documents Life in the Red in the NYTimes...

"The usual explanations for reckless borrowing focus on people’s character, or social norms that promote free spending and instant gratification. But recent research has shown that scarcity by itself is enough to cause this kind of financial self-sabotage. “When we put people in situations of scarcity in experiments, they get into poverty traps,” said Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. “They borrow at high interest rates that hurt them, in ways they knew to avoid when there was less scarcity.” The psychological burden of debt not only saps intellectual resources, it also reinforces the reckless behavior, and quickly."