It’s stunning to read about how leveraged our economy is, and how painful the de-leveraging process is likely to be. Still, there are bound to be opportunities for the enterprising in all the pain around us. A real industry shift if ever there was one.
For the moment though, I’ll settle for reflecting on a couple of grim statistics, courtesy of theWall St. Journal.
Total Household debt rose to $13.6 trillion by the third quarter of 2007 from $7.2 trillion at the beginning of 2001 – a 10% annual growth rate.
Today, one out of every seven dollars of disposable income earned by Americnas now goes toward paying down debt.
One out of seven! That’s stunning.