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Panda · 21-07-2008, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milkman

Here is an article. And I blame the borrower and not the lender. However, it's worth noting that yes, wages have stagnated, and the cost of education, and
basic cost of living has outpaced wages. housing, energy, inflation, and

Quote:

Household debt, including mortgages and credit cards, represents 19 percent of household assets, according to the Fed, compared with 13 percent in 1980.
Even as this debt was mounting, incomes stagnated for many Americans. As a result, the percentage of disposable income that consumers must set aside to service their debt — a figure that includes monthly credit card payments, car loans, mortgage interest and principal — has risen to 14.5 percent from 11 percent just 15 years ago.
By contrast, the nation’s savings rate, which exceeded 8 percent of disposable income in 1968, stood at 0.4 percent at the end of the first quarter of this year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
More ominous, as Americans have dug themselves deeper into debt, the value of their assets has started to fall. Mortgage debt stood at $10.5 trillion at the end of last year, more than double the $4.8 trillion just seven years earlier, but home prices that were rising to support increasing levels of debt, like home equity lines
of credit, are now dropping.

The New York Times: Reference Search for 'Household debt, including mortgages'

Hey! What are you saying? These guys are Americans. Citizens of the greatest country ever to rule the earth, and as such the rest of the world owes them a living. Americans should be allowed to have as much debt as they want. Consumer goods like TVs and stereos cost money you know. There is no reason why the average American citizen shouldn't have access to unlimited credit as long as the US government can keep printing $US money to sell to the rest of the world. That is unless the rest of the world looses faith in the value of the $US.
OOps, that wasn't supposed to happen. Lets try printing more money and selling it to the losers who have been sucking up $USs in the past. Bastards don't want to play now. Its so un-American!