by Bob Sullivan
Half of all Americans don't pay their credit card bills every month. A new study suggests you can blame the kids.
Robert Manning, who exposed America's bad debt habits in his book Credit Card Nation, recently conducted a series of focus groups to explore consumers' seemingly irrational spending habits.
He found that many Americans aren't the selfish super-consumers they have been made out to be. Instead, much of the nation's exorbitant consumer debt is the result of parents -- and grandparents -- trying to give their children the best of everything. The single most important factor underlying high debts is the "elevated lifestyles" parents provide for their children, the report found.
How about putting some of the blame on the credit card companies, how many aplications do you get in a month?