Comment on Meltdown : Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace The Debt by Murtaza

Very interesting point of view. While i’m intrigued by the idea that Debt has been America’s constant companion from the moment of birth, I think the real culprit has been the widespread dissemination of the idea (since the 80s) that credit is great, and the higher the credit limit, for an individual, a corporation, or a country, the better. So, between 1776 and 1980, US private debt and federal debt accumulated to $1 trillion each. But in the next 28 years, they increased by 14 and 10 trillion dollars respectively. This is vaporware economics fed by a “credit as panacea” mantra.
Also see a related post: http://localandglobal.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/will-the-world-buy-americas-debt/