Credit scores drop at fastest pace since the Great Recession

The leading indicator to me was when I started spending more time trying to recover from identity thefts every year than not. The frauds became novel, no longer just maxing out retail credit lines to baby goods and lingerie shops, but exploiting internal corporate processes that were tedious to discover, explain, and clear. I'm not really served by credit, so it felt like I was going through a lot of effort talking with companies, writing affidavits, and getting police reports for nothing.

So I stopped fixing it.

And guess what? Not having perfect credit made me such an unattractive target that it hasn't happened since. I write letters of dispute to the bureaus, but if they choose not to remove anything (the debt collectors are much easier to convince, by comparison), I suppose that's as far as I'll go until I need it.

Rising defaults on car loans, increasing term lengths for car loans, people living off credit cards, increasing unemployment, reduced job availability, divisive politics, unstable foreign relations, out of control spending/debt, … and yet a stock market that is at record highs. I also wonder why gold and crypto are doing so well at the same time. Everything is high but it seems like a bad situation. And yet, people will get laughed at for predicting a recession or some other event, because it’s hard to predict the timing. Still, I feel like something has to give.