What happens in the civil courts are the last tremors of an economy built around the twin seductions of consumption and debt, a dance portrayed in "In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts," a 2007 documentary by Danny Schechter.
Yet this possibly London-centric view underestimates the sheer scale of debts already accumulated and, after a brief period of repayment, the need to feed consumption with debt.
Can the economy rebalance so that it relies less on consumption and debt and more on innovation and export?
As these information workers tried to build lifestyles that fit their station, consumption and debt levels soared.
It is clear only that we must work down the excesses in the system in capacity, consumption and debt that were created in the late 90's.
Everything since has been a series of "sprees" (his favorite word): spending sprees, consumption sprees, debt sprees, and above all money-printing sprees.
So overall, we have seen more consumption, more debt, more disinvesting and indeed, we have seen more public spending despite so-called austerity by the government.
Mr. Kemp, having embraced a supply-side economic theory, told the House that year that the nation suffered under a "tax code that rewards consumption, leisure, debt and borrowing, and punishes savings, investment, work and production".
