The high interest rates and crippling inflation brought to you by President Joe Biden’s disastrous economic policies mean young people are saddled with more credit card debt than previous generations.

“Housing inflation has proven to be one of the stickiest components to drive up the cost of living, with rents outpacing salaries in all but six of the top 50 metropolitan areas,” reports Yahoo Finance. “Rising food prices and heavy student loan debt also factor in as young Americans are forced to tighten their belt by reducing expenses to their essentials.”

Maybe these idiots should stop moving to metropolitan areas.

TransUnion reports that “these higher [housing] costs matched with their entry-level salaries have forced [the] young people” what we call Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, “to rely much more often on expensive forms of revolving lines of debt—such as credit cards—to make ends meet.”

“This is a generation that is feeling financial stress in a more acute way than millennials did a decade ago,” one researcher at TransUnion told the Wall Street Journal:

The average open balance on U.S. credit cards for Gen Z consumers grew to $2,834 last year versus $2,248 a decade earlier. The added $586 is a figure that has been adjusted to take account of inflation.

Debt burdens in general have become harder to shoulder for Americans as a whole, with U.S. consumers’ median minimum monthly debt payments growing by 32% between 2020 and 2023, according to Wise’s company. This easily surpassed the 18% rate of inflation over that same period.

Here’s the brutal reality: Those aged 60+ “saw their monthly payments rise by only 11%, [which is] below the overall cost-of-living increase[.]” Those aged 18 to 29 saw their monthly payments rise by a “staggering 74%.”

Here’s how the Wall Street Journal breaks it down…

The median yearly salary for recent college grads was $58,858 in 2020. Three years later, that number hardly budged at $60,000. During those same three years, the average monthly rent jumped 22 percent to $1,987. Add in Biden’s insane food inflation, and what you have is a cost-of-living nightmare.

And let’s not forget what importing ten million-plus illegal aliens does to housing costs.

Young people need to figure out that this is what the establishment wants…It wants you enslaved with debt. Big Government, Big Business, Big Finance, and the rest want you stuck on their plantation, toiling away until you die of stress and exhaustion. That way, you keep paying that 28 percent credit card interest, keep coming to work, keep taking your pills, and keep renting because you can’t afford to own anything—like a house or car. Debt ensures your dependency. Debt stops you from being able to unplug from the mainframe. Debt keeps the Borg collective humming.

If you are forced to purchase food on a credit card, you will never get out from under.

But are you buying smart or buying stupid? Is your food coming from restaurants? Are you subscribing to Netflix, Disney+, Max, Spotify, and the like? Are you taking an Uber everywhere? If so, you’re an idiot.

Back in the mid-80s, I worked as an assistant gardener for a nursing home. I brought home $700 a month. My rent, bus pass, gas, electric, and phone ate up around $450 of that. Still, I had no credit cards. No debt at all. Why? Because I got by on rice, macaroni, Hamburger Helper, store-brand coffee, and staying home. I watched broadcast TV (which is still free) and rented the occasional movie for $1 at the local library. Yes, I treaded financial water, but I got by without sinking into debt. After I got married, and without a college degree, I paid off my house at age 37. Today, I have everything I want and no debt whatsoever.

You can make interest work for or against you.

You can be owned, or you can be free.

If I were starting out today, I’d move to some dying small town in the Midwest where housing is cheap. There, you can build something. In these “metropolitan areas,” you are a slave. I’ll never be rich, but nobody owns me.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.