Dugout Debt

Minor-league baseball fans and players chat about debt in on-line clip

Two popular American pastimes – borrowing and baseball – intersect in a YouTube video addressing Americans’ attitudes toward debt.

Filmed on a sunny day at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, Minn., the four-minute guerrilla video captures an array of attitudes, ranging from nonchalant to no-nonsense in impromptu interviews with tailgaters, players, concessionaires and a musician.

Minor-league ballplayers from the nationally known St. Paul Saints pause in dugouts and batting cages to discuss their own debt. Their stories sound very much like ones told by their fans.

Produced by Securian Financial Group, the clip illustrates formal findings from the group’s 2009 Survey of Financial Values and Debt , which indicates that Americans are saving more than in recent years, keeping the cash for emergencies, but standing pat with old debt loads.

One ballplayer is behind on his cable bill – “maybe I’ll hit the lottery”, he says tongue-in-cheek, resolved to pay off all his debt someday. A fan confides credit card debt but expects to be debt free one day. When? The on-camera reaction is instructive, suggesting that debt reduction plans, especially among younger respondents, are more optimistically assertive than specific.

The interviews gleaned little pessimism about the economy. Yet the Securian survey released in May 2009 indicates that debt-free retirement, a key consumer goal, may be the downturn’s biggest casualty. Eighty-two percent of survey respondents are carrying non-mortgage debt, a figure that is virtually undiminished since Securian's initial survey in 2007. Baby Boomers in the survey actually added debt since 2007.

"Consumers are wisely adjusting their spending and borrowing, but the ultimate goal of debt-free retirement will be more difficult to achieve without a better balance between saving and debt reduction," said Kerry Geurkink, director of Individual Annuity Marketing, Securian Retirement.

Securian Financial Group helps provide financial security for individuals and businesses in the form of insurance, retirement products and services, and investments. Securian has nearly $775 billion of life insurance in force, $25 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2009 and a nationwide work force of 3,600 employees. Securian serves more than 9,000,000 individuals in the U.S.