Chávez build his popularity on oil money and foreign debt, using both to fund consumption, while nationalising more than 1,200 private companies deemed not to be functioning in the public interest.
In the United States and several European countries, even before the start of the financial crisis, income inequality meant that real incomes were growing by less than would be justified by productivity gains, pushing households to borrow to fund consumption.
Having relocated from, say, San Jose to Phoenix, the retiree can afford a grand home at a fraction of the price, and the rest of the gain from relocating becomes a stream of income used to fund consumption, including an expanding array of health services.
Immigrants save throughout their working lives to fund consumption in retirement.
An SSDI applicant can also borrow from credit cards to fund consumption while their application is pending.
While applicants may borrow from credit cards to fund consumption while waiting, there is no significant correlation between borrowing from other financial resources and waiting time.
However, while the wait time for SSDI has drawn increased attention from research and the policy-making arenas, the relationship between waiting time and how individuals fund consumption remains unexplored.
Overall, however, most of the literature on development and migration seems to concur that remittances are largely used to fund consumption (de Haas 2010), which is not necessarily a bad thing for households in the poorest countries (Yang 2011).
Because of this strong earnings decline and the fact that applicants receive no income or medical benefits until their case has been decided, SSDI applicants have fewer financial resources to fund consumption during the application process.
