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Fast-expanding Gulf carrier Qatar Airways says talks with Airbus over an expected large plane order are now stalled.

The company’s CEO, Akbar al-Baker, said the negotiations were at an impasse Tuesday. He added that he is “pessimistic” about an accord before the end of this week’s Dubai Airshow.

Doha-based Qatar Airways’ fleet of 101 aircraft is dominated by Airbus planes, though it does have orders or options for nearly 90 Boeing jets.

On Tuesday, Qatar Airways announced plans to buy two Boeing 777 cargo planes.

Qatar Airways is increasingly challenging Dubai-based Emirates in the race for long-haul customers that use the Gulf as a transit hub.

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The humble pickup truck has plowed through the desert sands of Libya in pursuit of Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and patrols the high passes of Afghanistan. Tough, multitasking and relatively cheap, it’s the choice of Latin American armies, al-Qaida terrorists, Somali warlords and even U.S. Special Forces trying to blend in with the locals.

Of course, most don’t just pick one off the lot and drive to the battlefield. They modify them in back-alley workshops to become lethal and more durable. Or they come here, to a busy, sprawling plant that turns out military-style modifications by the thousands.

Pairing sophisticated computer modeling with skilled workers, many from poor families in the surrounding countryside, the RMA Group has supplied 35,000 such road warriors, mostly Ford Rangers, to the Afghanistan police and army under a U.S. military contract, with more on their way.

Other apparently satisfied customers of the Thailand-based American company range from U.N. peacekeepers to private individuals seeking bullet-free rides. Singapore’s military recently bought 1,000 converted SUVs.

“We take a commercial vehicle off the shelf, the price of which is generally low, and then adapt that to exactly what the customer wants and needs. We focus on rough-tough, conflict and post-conflict markets,” says Ron Tyack, a group vice president. He recently took reporters through the factory, 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of the Thai capital Bangkok.

At one station stood a tested Ford Everest, seven of its windows shattered but not penetrated by 27 AK-47 bullets.

“There is no second chance to ‘get it right’ when it comes to shielding your vehicle from hostile fire,” notes an RMA brochure. Muscled up with steel, composite materials and ballistic glass, such pickups are meant to stop fire from handguns, rifles like the AK-47 and grenade shrapnel.

The converted Rangers for Afghan forces average $25,000 apiece compared to some $100,000 for a Humvee, the equivalent U.S. military workhorse, says Tyack, an Australian with more than 40 years of automotive experience. Spare parts for pickups generally are also cheaper and easier to obtain _ all reasons for their popularity among guerrillas, rebels and armies on a shoestring budget.

“The ANP (Afghan National Police) has conducted a lot of successful operations using Ford Ranger pickups in remote cities and districts. (They’re) strong, work very well in difficult terrain and on dirt roads,” says Mohammad Najib Nikzad, an Afghanistan government spokesman. But he said Toyota pickups were cheaper and their higher speed made it easier to pursue suspects in cities.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. Special Forces teams sometimes board unmarked pickups to avoid detection. U.N. peacekeepers in Kosovo, Haiti and elsewhere ride in pickups emblazoned with U.N. markings. RMA has a five-year contract with the world body to provide the vehicles.

On Libya’s front lines recently, field commander Abdel-Razak Najim told The Associated Press his revolutionary fighters preferred Toyota but added that the more robust Ford was “a big car and has good balance so we attach rocket launchers on them because they can handle the force.” Virtually all the battlefield pickups in Libya are locally modified.

The Toyota Hilux, designed for backwoods recreation and hauling goods to market, has been a special favorite of irregular forces since its introduction in the late 1960s. The defeat in 1987 of Gadhafi’s forces by the highly mobile troops of Chad was dubbed the “Toyota War.”

The RMA Group, which started modestly in 1985 and expects $770 million in revenue this year, also works on models from Toyota for the mining industry as well as Land Rover but has its strongest links with the Ford Mazda Motor Company, a joint venture of the two automakers that produces the Rangers just 30 kilometers (18 miles) away. Thailand has become a major Asian hub for foreign car manufacturing and export, turning out about 1.8 million a year. It’s also the world’s second-largest market for pickups, after the United States.

When the U.S. military sought bids for light tactical vehicles, Ford didn’t have a ready product that met the specifications and didn’t want to get into the modification business. RMA got a major boost when it stepped in, delivering the first one to Afghanistan in 2005.

Tyack says that detailed groundwork is done on customer requirements and the invariably punishing environments in which the vehicles will operate.

For Afghanistan, the dark green Rangers need heater blocks to withstand temperatures that can plunge to minus 30 degrees Centigrade (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit), higher ground clearance given the rock-strewn roads and better suspension to take heavy loads (Tyack recalls seeing one carry a baby camel). Better filters are needed since fuel in Afghanistan is usually high in sulfur content. Standard tires are replaced by virtually puncture-proof, non-radial ones.

“You don’t want to be on patrol and suddenly find you have a flat tire,” he says. You also don’t want to be hit with a roadside bomb because most of the Rangers are not armored, given the high cost of such conversions.

The plant also can come up with more than 100 adaptations beside the battlefield versions.

A Land Rover Defender at the plant had been turned into a field ambulance. In 2008, on urgent request from the Vietnamese government, the plant configured vehicles for workers investigating the possible outbreak of Asian bird flu, providing separate driver and health worker compartments and isolated storage for hazardous specimens.

Elsewhere at the factory, pickups geared for working in mines, sometimes underground, were readied for shipment after being beefed up with extra protection against falling rocks and rollovers. Customers include gold mines in South Africa and the Freeport mine, one of the world’s largest, in Indonesia’s Papua province. With an ongoing separatist insurgency in the latter nation, some of the pickups destined for Freeport are armored.

Quality control testing is done on factory grounds, with the vehicles driven through a ford, under a shower, around a steeply sloped curve, over a patch of rock-strewn road and into a deep freezer.

One piece of equipment _ a machine gun _ doesn’t get bolted on until the truck reaches Afghanistan. The company is not in the weapons business.

Tyack says RMA, with 1,600 of its 4,000 employees in Afghanistan, sees itself as part of the transition from U.S. to Afghan security control, providing not only the hardware but servicing and training. Since up to 5,000 of its road warriors will need to be replaced every year, it may well be around after the last American troops have gone home.

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A legal challenge launched Wednesday by the Canadian Wheat Board to stop Conservative efforts to dismantle the agency is

A committee of US Fidelis creditors wants to settle a suit it filed earlier this year accusing a former chief executive of fraudulently stripping at least $500,000 from the Wentzville company in the months leading up to its March 1, 2010, bankruptcy petition.

Before it stopped doing business in late 2009, US Fidelis was the nation’s largest seller of vehicle service contracts. The company imploded amid allegations of consumer abuses and plundering by its owners, the brothers Darain and Cory Atkinson, who were indicted on June 15 on charges of consumer fraud, stealing and illegally selling insurance payday loans in one hour.

In March 2009, the Atkinsons hired Chris Riley to turn around the company’s image and, if possible, prepare it to be sold. Riley, a consultant who specialized in corporate mergers and acquisitions, was to be paid an annual salary of $300,000 and one year of company-paid rent at his house in Creve Coeur.

In October 2009

France’s president says the European Union will force banks to raise their capital to higher levels already by 2012 rather than 2019.

Nicolas Sarkozy said Sunday the capital buffers banks have to achieve under the Basel III rules will already be obligatory for big EU banks as of next year.

He did not say how much money banks will have to raise as a result. He was speaking after a summit of the 27 EU leaders.

The Basel III rules require banks to have a capital ratio of 9 percent of risky assets. That is much higher than the 5 percent they needed to pass EU stress tests this summer.

A European official said Saturday that would force banks to raise just over euro100 billion ($137.98 billion).

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BRUSSELS (AP) _ Greece’s prime minister pleaded Sunday for a comprehensive solution to the European debt crisis that has swallowed his country and is threatening to suck in larger economies, but the continent’s leaders warned the world may have to wait a few more days.

The search for a comprehensive solution to its escalating debt troubles has divided the continent. Increasingly it is pitting not only the poorer countries in the eurozone against their richer neighbors that are tired of bailing them out, but also sparking anger from governments outside the 17-state currency union, who fear being dragged into the mess.

“The crisis in the eurozone is having a chilling effect on all our economies, Britain included. … We have to deal with this issue,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said on his way into the meeting of the 27-country EU. Britain does not use the euro. Later in the day, the leaders of countries the 17 that use the euro will meet on their own.

Cameron’s eurozone counterparts, meanwhile, tried to lower expectations for Sunday’s meetings, saying the real decisions will be made Wednesday at another emergency summit.

“Let’s put the expectations in context: Don’t count on decisions today,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Leaders are in the difficult position of not being able to decide on anything until everything is in place, since each piece of the crisis puzzle affects the others.

The biggest sticking point is how to most effectively use Europe’s bailout fund to make sure Italy and Spain don’t see their borrowing costs spiral out of control as happened with Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Europe doesn’t have enough money to rescue Italy and Spain as it did the other three countries; analysts say it must act now to eliminate the possibility of their collapse.

Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at a meeting on Sunday morning to reform the country’s economy before it’s too late, according to a German official. He spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

While the German and French leaders presented a united front to Italy, their disagreements over how best to use the bailout fund, which is called the European Financial Stability Facility, are causing delays.

France wants the fund to be allowed to tap the massive cash reserves of the European Central Bank _ an option Germany rejects. And weaker economies are wary of agreeing to the other two parts of the grand plan _ bigger bank capital and cuts to Greece’s debt _ without assurance that the bailout fund is ready to provide support.

Until it does, the continuing uncertainty will roil markets and slow growth across Europe and even the world.

Worst off, of course, is Greece, which reeling from several rounds of budget cuts that have sparked a series of strikes and riots.

“Greece has proven again and again that we are making the necessary decisions to make our economy sustainable, and make our economy more just,” Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told reporters as he headed into Sunday’s meetings. “We are doing what we need from our side … but it’s been proven now that the crisis is not a Greek crisis. The crisis is a European crisis, so now is the time that we as Europeans need to act decisively and effectively.”

To ease the pressure on the country, banks will be asked to accept much bigger losses on the country’s bonds.

Austria’s chancellor said the cut in the value of Greek government bond will likely be raised “in the direction of 40 to 50 percent.”

“A cut in the debt is the right step,” Werner Faymann told Austrian newspaper Wiener Kurier. The comments were confirmed by one of his aides.

Despite massive budget cuts and reforms, a new report has said that Greece’s economic situation is still dire and that worsening economic conditions mean it could take the country decades to emerge from the crisis.

The report from debt inspectors said the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund would likely have to lend Athens more money unless the banks accept a 60 percent writedown of the bonds they hold. That would be on top of the euro110 billion ($300 billion) in rescue loans that have been propping up with country since May 2010.

Another rescue of a similar size was agreed to in July, but it’s now clear that deal did not go far enough. For instance, it called for only a 21 percent cut in Greek bond holdings; leaders are now discussing a much more significant reduction, though an exact percentage has not yet emerged.

The near-consensus among eurozone countries that Greece’s debt will have to be slashed is one of the reasons banks across Europe _ not only in the 17-country eurozone _ will be forced to shore up their capital buffers in the coming months.

A European official said Saturday that new rules agreed by EU finance ministers would see banks having to raise just over euro100 billion ($140 billion). The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the rules were pending approval from EU leaders.

However, on Sunday it was uncertain whether EU leaders would even be able to sign off on the bank capital rules before a second summit Wednesday. A draft of summit conclusions from Sunday morning only welcomed the progress made by finance ministers, adding that the final decision would be made by yet another finance ministers’ meeting on Wednesday ahead of the second summit.

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Greeks furious at the government’s austerity measures are vowing to turn out in force on the streets of Athens on the second day of a general strike, as lawmakers vote on the intensely unpopular new measures needed to secure continued payment from an international bailout fund.

Unions plan demonstrations, with one intending to encircle parliament in an attempt to prevent lawmakers getting into the building for the vote. On Wednesday, riots broke out during a protest march by more than 100,000 people.

The austerity bill won initial approval with a majority vote Wednesday, and lawmakers now vote on the details.

The measures include the suspension on reduced pay of 30,000 public servants and the suspension of collective labor contracts, and have angered even deputies from the governing Socialist party.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement has close to $300,000, as well as storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan. It stared down city officials to hang on to its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle Saturday with a big Times Square demonstration and found legions of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the country and around the world.

Could this be the peak for loosely organized protesters, united less by a common cause than by revulsion to what they consider unbridled corporate greed? Or are they just getting started?

There are signs of confidence, but also signs of tension among the demonstrators at Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the movement that began a month ago Monday. They have trouble agreeing on things like whether someone can bring in a sleeping bag, and show little sign of uniting on any policy issues. Some protesters eventually want the movement to rally around a goal, while others insist that isn’t the point.

“We’re moving fast, without a hierarchical structure and lots of gears turning,” said Justin Strekal, a college student and political organizer who traveled from Cleveland to New York to help. “… Egos are clashing, but this is participatory democracy in a little park.”

Even if the protesters were barred from camping in Zuccotti Park, as the property owner and the city briefly threatened to do last week, the movement would continue, Strekal said. He said activists were working with legal experts to identify alternate sites where the risk of getting kicked out would be relatively low.

Wall Street protesters are intent on hanging on to the momentum they gained from Saturday’s worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. They’re filling a cavernous space a block from Wall Street with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of a private park nearby.

They’ve amassed mounds of blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, cans of food, medical and hygienic supplies _ even oddities like a box of knitting wool and 20 pairs of swimming goggles (to shield protesters from pepper-spray attacks). Supporters are shipping about 300 boxes a day, Strekal said.

The space was donated by the United Federation of Teachers, which has offices in the building.

Close to $300,000 in cash also has been donated, through the movement’s website and by people who give money in person at the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for the movement. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.”

Strekal said the donated goods are being stored “for a long-term occupation.”

“We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!” Kara Segal and other volunteers chanted in the building lobby as they arrived to help unpack and sort items, preparing them to be rolled out to the park.

While on the streets, moments of madness occasionally erupt in the protest crowd _ accompanied by whiffs of marijuana, grungy clothing and disarray _ order prevails at the storage site.

It doubles as a sort of Occupy Wall Street central command post, with strategic meetings that are separate from the “general assembly” free-for-alls in the park. One subject Sunday was data entry: protesters are working to get the names and addresses of donors into a databank.

The movement has become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race and beyond, with politicians from both parties under pressure to weigh in.

President Barack Obama referred to the protests at Sunday’s dedication of a monument for Martin Luther King Jr., saying the civil rights leader “would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there.”

Many of the largest of Saturday’s protests were in Europe, where protesters involved in long-running demonstrations against austerity measures declared common cause with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Rome, hundreds of rioters infiltrated a march by tens of thousands of demonstrators, causing what the mayor estimated was at least euro1 million ($1.4 million) in damage to city property.

U.S. cities large and small were “occupied” over the weekend: Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska, Burlington, Vt., Rapid City, S.D., and Cheyenne, Wyo. were just a few. In Cincinnati, protesters moved their demonstration out of a park after hearing that a couple was getting their wedding photos taken there _ but the bride and groom ended up seeking them out for pictures.

More than 70 New York protesters were arrested Saturday, more than 40 of them in Times Square. About 175 people were arrested in Chicago after they refused to leave a park where they were camped late Saturday, and there were about 100 arrests in Arizona _ 53 in Tucson and 46 in Phoenix _ after protesters refused police orders to disperse. About two dozen people were arrested in Denver, and in Sacramento, Calif., anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was among about 20 people arrested after failing to follow police orders to disperse.

Activists around the country said they felt that Saturday’s protests energized their movement.

“It’s an upward trajectory,” said John St. Lawrence, a Florida real estate lawyer who took part in Saturday’s Occupy Orlando protest, which drew more than 1,500 people. “It’s catching people’s imagination and also, knock on wood, nothing sort of negative or discrediting has happened.”

St. Lawrence is among those unconcerned that the movement has not rallied around any particular proposal, saying “policy is for leaders to come up with.”

“I don’t think the underlying theme is a mystery,” he said. “We saw what the banks and financial institutions did to the economy. We bailed them out. And then they went about evicting people from their homes,” he said. He added that although he is not in debt and owns his own home, other people in his neighborhood are suffering and “everyone’s interests are interconnected.”

In Richmond, Va., about 75 people gathered Sunday for one of the “general assembly” meetings that are a key part of the movement’s consensus-building process. Protester Whitney Whiting, a video editor, said the process has helped “gather voices” about Americans discontent, and that she expects it will eventually take the movement a step further.

“In regards to a singular issue or a singular focus, I think that will come eventually. But right now we have to set up a space for that to happen,” Whiting said.

Some U.S. protesters, like those in Europe, have their own causes. Unions that have joined forces with the movement have demands of their own, and on Sunday members of the newly formed Occupy Pittsburgh group demanded that Bank of New York Mellon Corp. pay back money they allege it overcharged public pension funds around the country.

New York’s attorney general and New York City sued BNY Mellon this month, accusing it of defrauding clients in foreign currency exchange transactions that generated nearly $2 billion over 10 years. The company has vowed to fight the lawsuit and had no comment about the protesters’ allegation about pensions.

Lisa Deaton, a tea party leader from southern Indiana, said she sees some similarities between how the tea party movement and the Wall Street protests began: “We got up and we wanted to vent.”

But the critical step, she said, was taking that emotion and focusing it toward changing government.

The first rally she organized drew more than 2,500 people, but afterward, “it was like, `What do we do?’” she said. “You can’t have a concert every weekend.”

The Wall Street protesters’ lack of leadership and focus on consensus-building has help bring together people with different perspectives, but it’s also created some tension.

“Issues are arising _ like who is bringing in sleeping bags without permission,” said Laurie Dobson, who’s been helping a self-governed “working group” called “SIS” _ for Shipping, Inventory and Supplies.

Sleeping bags were among items cited by Zuccotti Park’s owner, Brookfield Properties, as not allowed on the premises _ along with tents, tarps and other essentials for the encampment. By Sunday, all those items were back.

Strekal didn’t see that as a problem. Protesters could do it, he said, “because we’re winning the PR war.”

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U.S. consumers spent more on autos, clothing and furniture in September to boost retail sales by the most in seven months. The gain offered a hopeful sign for the sluggish economy.

The Commerce Department says retail sales increased 1.1 percent last month.

Auto sales rose 3 free online credit report.6 percent to drive the overall gain. Excluding that category, sales increased a solid 0.6 percent.

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TORONTO — The financial sector helped push the Toronto stock market sharply higher Wednesday amid reports that European Union officials are examining plans help banks better withstand fallout from the eurozone’s government debt crisis.

In an interview with the Financial Times, European Commissioner Olli Rehn hinted at a possible bank recapitalisation plan but didn’t provide any details.

The S&P/TSX composite index surged 198.49 points to 11,376.4 while the TSX Venture Exchange rose 34.66 points to 1,354.98.

Investors have been concerned over the last couple of months about the slowing pace of economic revival and a possible debt default by Greece, which would worsen economic conditions and cause havoc on the European financial sector.

Recapitalising eurozone banks could limit the damage to the financial system should the Greek government default.

An increased appetite for risk sent the Canadian dollar up 0.39 of a cent to 95.19 cents US.

U.S. markets were also supported by positive economic data, with the Dow Jones industrial average ahead 22.86 points to 10,831.57. The Nasdaq composite index rose 10.1 points to 2,414.92 while the S&P 500 index was up 3.69 points to 1,127.64.

The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index showed the services sector continuing to expand during September. It came in at 53, which met expectations and was just slightly lower than the August reading.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund is pushing for radical changes in the way the eurozone’s debt crisis should be handled.

Antonio Borges, the head of the IMF’s Europe program, said the eurozone’s bailout fund should get more firepower and new tools. To help, he said the IMF could intervene in bond markets to keep the crisis from engulfing large economies like Italy and Spain

Franco-Belgian bank Dexia was in the spotlight once again Wednesday amid mounting expectations that it will be broken up somehow, possibly as soon as Thursday.

Dexia has been at the forefront of investor concerns over its exposure to potentially bad debt from Europe’s most indebted countries. Investors are concerned about what bonds Europe’s banks are holding, and banks themselves have become reluctant to lend to one another.

An announcement that ratings agency Moody’s Investor Services had downgraded Italy’s debt by three notches to A2 was taken in stride on financial markets. Moody’s cited high debt, a weak global economy and political uncertainties.

Markets failed to find much lift from positive employment data two days before the release of the U.S. government’s non-farm payrolls report for September. Economists hope the economy created around 55,000 jobs.

On Wednesday, payrolls firm Automatic Data Processing said that the U.S. private sector added 91,000 jobs last month.

The financials sector was up 1.43 per cent in the wake of the Financial Times report. Royal Bank was up 39 cents to $46.34 and TD Bank rose $1.03 to $72.17.

The energy sector gained 2.21 per cent as hopes for improving demand prospects sent the November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ahead $2.11 to US$77.78 after losing almost $2 on Tuesday to its lowest close since September 2010. Suncor Energy was up $1.12 to C$26.55 and Cenovus Energy gained 94 cents to $31.34.

Other commodities were mixed with December gold in New York ahead $3.60 to US$1,619.60 an ounce, leaving the gold sector up 1.42 per cent. Barrick Gold Corp. rose 50 cents to C$47.64 and Goldcorp Inc. climbed $1.22 to $47.16.

The base metals sector was 2.4 per cent higher while December copper prices were down seven cents at US$3.04. Teck Resources climbed $1.20 to C$32.19 and HudBay Minerals was ahead 23 cents to $10.28.

The TSX has closed lower for the past three days, leaving Canada’s biggest stock market in bear market territory, down 22 per cent from its 2011 highs from early March.

Commodity prices have taken a huge hit since early August when investors started to get concerned that global growth was faltering and there was a growing possibility that economies could slide back into recession.

That in turn has resulted in large losses in energy and mining companies on the resource-heavy TSX as oil prices have slid about 20 per cent in the last two months while copper has plunged 31 per cent.

Copper is widely viewed as a barometer for the health of the overall global economy since it is used in electronics, homes and infrastructure.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index closed 0.9 per cent lower and Korea’s Kospi index ended 2.3 per cent down.

Stock markets in Hong Kong and mainland China were closed for a holiday.

European bourses advanced with London’s FTSE 100 index up 2.81 per cent, Frankfurt’s DAX gained 4.48 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 advanced 3.27 per cent.

On the corporate front, Talisman Energy Inc. lowered its full-year production forecast to about 425,000 barrels of oil per day, down from a previous estimate of 430,000 to 440,000 barrels, as it resumes production at its Rev facility in Norway. Its shares fell 15 cents to $12.

Precision Drilling Corporation has signed deals to build eight new rigs for the Canadian and U.S. oil and gas industry. Financial terms of the contracts were not revealed by the big Calgary-based drilling services company. Its shares lost 12 cents to $8.95.

Labopharm Inc. and Gruppo Angelini have terminated their existing joint venture agreement established in May 2010 and restructured their drug-commercialization partnership and its shares dipped half a cent to 28 cents.

Costco Wholesale Corp.’s fiscal fourth-quarter net income climbed 11 per cent to US$478 million as the wholesale club operator made more money on membership fees and saw sales rise. But the performance missed analysts’ expectations. The company also said it will raise annual membership fees starting next month.

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A year ago, we launched Moneyville with an excerpt from The Wealthy Barber Returns, the long awaited sequel to the bestselling book written 21 years ago by David Chilton.

The chapter used the story of a French philosopher redecorating his apartment as a proxy for what great spenders we have become 240 years later, seduced by the many easy ways we can borrow money, particularly lines of credit. There were no lines of credit in 18th Century Paris, nor did consumers have them as little as 20 years ago. But we have increasingly found them irresistible, treating the convenience and interest-only repayment schedules as a second income, rather then debt. They help us buy things we can’t afford and haven’t saved for, which is rather far from their original purpose of allowing us to borrow for large, unanticipated expenses that in the old days needed a fixed-term loan from the bank. A weeklong Moneyville series this winter, revealed that for some people line of credit spending is running wild.

The Wealthy Barber Returns has been in book stores for a few weeks and is already a bestselling Canadian title. Moneyville’s review by Ellen Roseman said many readers will find the message disturbing. Easy credit is killing us and we’re deluding ourselves about how we can stay in debt all our lives and still have a comfortable retirement.

We sat down again with Chilton to get his thoughts on how things have changed since the original Wealthy Barber was published. The good news is that we’ve started to save more, but the bad is that we’re spending even faster.

“The single biggest change in the last 20 years is that debt has escalated,” says Chilton. “And there are three reasons. Interest rates are low, so that you’re not punished so much for borrowing, lines of credit have made it easy to spend and average credit card limits have gone up.”

He believes our attitudes have also changed so that we aren’t as frightened of debt as we once were and at the same time have become consumed by consumption. “You want what you want when you want it,” he says. And lines of credit make it that much easier with money that seems almost free.

Chilton tells a story in the book about a woman who borrowed $60,000 from her credit line to help her son renovate his bathrooms. She assured Chilton it was nothing to worry about, because the reno only cost her $150 a month.

“I can afford it,” she said.

She reasoned that at her borrowing rate of 3 per cent, the $60,000 cost $1,800 a year in interest which worked out to the $150 a month or $5 a day. What’s the big deal? She was conveniently forgetting her principal repayment. The real cost was $150 a month, plus $60,000.

“That’s the thing,” Chilton says. “Many people with lines of credit have no plans to pay them back.”

Since these debts are usually secured by the equity in homes, they have essentially become reverse mortgages business card templates. Ater spending 25 years to pay off a mortgage, homeowners using their home as the security for new borrowing. What many don’t realize is that banks can call a line of credit at any time. They don’t because they’d rather have your monthly payment along with the debt. But they can.

These perpetual payments are robbing us of the ability to put money aside for retirement or into tax free savings accounts or even our kids RESPs.

“The issue is not about default,” Chilton says, “but not having enough money to save.”

Another worrisome trend is the attitude of young people towards saving and spending which is very much skewed toward instant gratification. Young people have access to debit and credit from an early age, much earlier than their parents did. “A lot of kids move out and want the same lifestyle as their parents right away, not realizing that it took their parents 25 years to achieve it,” he says.

And you shouldn’t look to your banker for help. The more they lend, the more profitable they are, so their incentive is make borrowing easy.

“Banks are businesses like any other,” Chilton says with a shrug. “Loblaws sell groceries, the Star sells newspapers, Dave Chilton sells books. Banks lend money.”

Chilton is a single parent, living Waterloo and has never had a line of credit. To be fair, unlike many of us he doesn’t really need one. Nor has he ever used a cash machine or a debit card. He pays wherever possible by cash because it makes the purchase real. He says the only reason he has a credit card is that he has to have to have one to travel – you can’t book a hotel room or airline ticket without one.

Looking to the broader economy Chilton sees governments facing on a larger scale what we face as individuals. The developed world has been living beyond its means and it has caught up to us. The developed world’s solution has been to lower interest rates to encourage more spending and the accumulation of more debt.

“I’m surprised we haven’t learned our lesson,: he says. “Solving crises with ever cheaper money leads to worse problems down the road. We’re going to have to put up with slow growth, which another reason why living within your means is a good thing.”

In the meantime he advises some simple remedies when you feel the urge to spend or peer or kid pressure makes you want to pull out some plastic. It’s all about four liberating words: I can’t afford it.

According to Chilton it’s an easy step to regaining control. Instead of trying to keep up with the Jones’ let them keep up you.

Win a copy of The Wealthy Barber Returns

Send an email to editor@moneyville.ca by the end of day Tuesday for a chance to win a copy of The Wealthy Barber Returns. The first five names drawn win a book.

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