I think it's just a lack of education, and it's not limited to the US, mind you. People seem to have this belief that credit is free money that they can delegate to the future. Since the detriment is deferred, people don't really examine it for face value. There's that, and most are really bad at visualizing debt.
I recently watched a documentary about the state of debt in the UK. It was quite shocking, normal regular people that got addicted to debt, and just spent, spent, and spent. Meanwhile, the banks kept rewarding their "debt" with higher limits and more fresh cards. These people took out ridiculous sums of money, sums that they need to spend probably decades paying off simply because their salaries are so low.
I recently watched a documentary about the state of debt in the UK. It was quite shocking, normal regular people that got addicted to debt, and just spent, spent, and spent. Meanwhile, the banks kept rewarding their "debt" with higher limits and more fresh cards. These people took out ridiculous sums of money, sums that they need to spend probably decades paying off simply because their salaries are so low.