Michael Mandel calls this the "world's scariest chart," and aside from the quarterly reports that prove people actually purchase and consume peeps,* I'm inclined to agree.
The dotted line shows household debt if it had kept growing at the rate it grew in the 90s. The solid black line shows what actually happened: It shot up. Shot up to the tune of $3 trillion in household debt beyond what we would've expected. That's tremendous, and it shows just how much of the recent "good times" have been a function of the increased availability of debt, credit, refinancing, and a variety of other financial instruments that helped us feel rich today even as we courted a reckoning tomorrow. Essentially, we've been operating a procrastination economy, in which we refused to actually face up to the amount of work needed to restore broad-based wage increases and real prosperity. Credit has been the mechanism we've used to put it off. But now it's all piled up, and the job is much, much larger.*Seriously, wtf?
The dotted line shows household debt if it had kept growing at the rate it grew in the 90s. The solid black line shows what actually happened: It shot up. Shot up to the tune of $3 trillion in household debt beyond what we would've expected. That's tremendous, and it shows just how much of the recent "good times" have been a function of the increased availability of debt, credit, refinancing, and a variety of other financial instruments that helped us feel rich today even as we courted a reckoning tomorrow. Essentially, we've been operating a procrastination economy, in which we refused to actually face up to the amount of work needed to restore broad-based wage increases and real prosperity. Credit has been the mechanism we've used to put it off. But now it's all piled up, and the job is much, much larger.*Seriously, wtf? 
