Who the hell is issuing all this credit? How the hell can they expect to get paid back? My expereince over 42 years of life in these United States is that somehow endless government spending on weapons and warfare and endless orgies of middle and upper-class consumption will always be underwiritten somehow by somebody, but if you try to spend a buck and a quarter on the poor, interest rates soar and we are deluged with both talk about, and real outbursts of, inflation. Is it all a manipulation and a scam, or am I missing something? These are not rhetorical questions.

China

I get it Mikes Paces. You're correct. On the big-ass macroeconomic level, the Chinese are underwriting the war and the budget deficeits. But that doesn't explain why US banks and other financial institutions are extending credit with all the forethought and rigour that Crakcer Jack does in dispensing prizes. Maybe Adam Smith and Janes Jacobs were nuts, but I learned that you have to make stuff in order to both a) trad with other people, and b) have your economy grow. For Adam Smith, you applied human ingenuity and labor to objects in the material world and BANGO you made new wealth. I don't se this happening in a big way in the United States today. I see Americans borrowing against old wealth, or speculating on imagined future wealth. Is this sustainable? And if it is, what does it say abut our classical theories of capitalism? I mean, if we can just swipe the national credit card endlessly, why not get rid of poverty?

Where is all this money coming from? Income is pretty flat, mortgages/home LOC's are about tapped out, etc... where are people getting the money to do all this consuming?

well put. And I've been wondering the same things for a long time. I read in the WSJ some time ago that the average American had something like $32,000 in credit card debt. I suspect that a lot of people are just paying the interest on their debt, which, because of the way credit card companies have structured the interest rates, is more profitable for the companies than actually getting paid for the original amount that was owed.

I have NEVER paid one penny of credit card interest, and use my two credit cards, which I have had for more than 20 years, as cash substitutes. But I suspect that I am an exception.

I own a small business. Last year (2006) was a terrible year for my clients. A number of them went bankrupt, some of the left the field, many of them ran up credit card debt and raided their 401Ks. Keep in mind that many of them made more money in 2005 than they had ever made. We all know that good times and bad times don't last forever, but too many of us don't live that way.

I think the hangover and recover from this binge is going to be a horror.

I've lived in France for the past two years. It's a whole lot different over here. Everyone I know has a savings account, and I mean everyone. These are not people who make a lot of money, some are just getting by, but they take a portion of their earnings every month and put it away.

Credit cards and loans are pretty hard to get here. The banks are strict and they really want to make sure you can pay this loan back. And man the French are frugal. They turn off the lights every time they leave the room. They drive small cars, mostly diesel, almost no one I know even has a clothes dryer! Water is treated like gold and refrigerators are small.

Yeah, consumerism exists but it's on a much smaller scale than in the States. The French really like their expensive wardrobes! They also have big screen TVs and the latest computers. And they tend to spend their money on nice vacations. But that's the kicker; they spend THEIR money, not some imaginary euros in a small plastic rectangle. They save up, and they buy. And if they put something on credit, it's for three months and they make big payments. All the home loans I've heard of are for 15 years.

I can't imagine their president telling them to go out and buy. It's a part of their culture to be penny wise. Something they're proud of, along with national health care and the 35 hour work week. Now, I can't say that France is a perfect country, their umemployment hovers around 10 percent, their administrative and social services costs are high and their GNP is pretty low. A lot of people are fed up with that and it looks like Sarkowzy is going to try to make some drastic changes but the French are a vocal, concerned, politically active country with an 80 percent voter turnout. We'll see.

I definitely think credit is too easy to get in the States. Credit card and loan companies need to be more closely regulated so people aren't encouraged to spend more than they have. Again, we'll see.

I sold my house--paid off all my credit cards, student loans and other debt--and moved here. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had the forethought and opportunity to experience a wholly different way of life. I don't know if I'll ever go back.

The average American is drowning in debt. The slide down the mountain has started: the housing industry tanking badly, the sub-prime credit companies going under, the construction industry laying off thousands...the list goes on and on..and the end is nowhere in sight.

When we come out of this morass nobody will be unaffected. Millions of people will be jobless, homeless and on welfare. This is going to far worse than the last few recessions, and almost equal to the Great Depression.

The American consumer is running on a tread mill tied to a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

There is an end to everything good and bad.

Thank god I don't have even one credit card! Call me pre-historic, but easy money is easily lost.