Stupidity only comes in one flavor

From MSNBC: "Uhazi is drowning in a sea of debt ($60k). And, like millions of other Americans, it is a debt load that she built up slowly over more than two decades of easy credit that made it all too simple to spend. Now she worries she won’t be able to pay it off because of the recession, which has led to a reduction in her salary and an increase in her credit card bills... Still, Uhazi said she didn’t often worry about her credit card debt, reasoning that she paid at least the minimum balance on all her cards....Perhaps the worst part was trying to figure out how her debt had reached that point."


I don't know how many thousands or even millions of stories there are just like this one, and I can only guess that the answer ultimately is stupidity.  How can someone not realize after two decades of their credit card debts going up that it wasn't a problem?  Her minimum payment according to the article was around twice her housing costs!  What basic level of fiscal training does someone need to realize that a balance will only go away with regular payments IF you are not also increasing that balance on a regular basis?  This lady didn't have a single life altering event that got her where she was.  She had steady employment and simply spent stupidly and consistently over her means for a 20 year period accumulating a debt that ended up being nearly twice her annual salary and at interest rates upwards of 20%.