U.S. Soldiers and Shoppers Hit the Wall
By ROGER COHEN
New York Times
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have pushed the U.S. armed forces to the limit. Many soldiers have scarcely seen their families in recent years. But a much larger American army, the one that's spent this century shopping, is even more overextended and its pain is now coming home to roost.
Nobody ever made money exhorting people to save. But U.S. banks and financial institutions have spent huge amounts in recent years telling people debt is good and savings are dumb.
Their ads - to the effect that "good daughters go into debt to take their mothers on vacation," as Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, put it - paid off handsomely as consumers went on a debt-financed shopping spree. Consumption has driven the U.S. economy; the only problem is consumers ran out of money years ago even as they did not run out of credit cards.
And here we are, with the rainy day our grandparents always droned on about appearing in the form of a deluge, and no savings stashed for it, and President George W. Bush, the debt-spender par excellence, conjuring up a $150-billion stimulus package that evokes the injection of steroids into a prone athlete wrecked by a marathon.
This "shot in the arm," as Bush put it, may dampen a little pain. But this patient will be in intensive care for a long time.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have pushed the U.S. armed forces to the limit. Many soldiers have scarcely seen their families in recent years. But a much larger American army, the one that's spent this century shopping, is even more overextended and its pain is now coming home to roost.
Nobody ever made money exhorting people to save. But U.S. banks and financial institutions have spent huge amounts in recent years telling people debt is good and savings are dumb.
Their ads - to the effect that "good daughters go into debt to take their mothers on vacation," as Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, put it - paid off handsomely as consumers went on a debt-financed shopping spree. Consumption has driven the U.S. economy; the only problem is consumers ran out of money years ago even as they did not run out of credit cards.
And here we are, with the rainy day our grandparents always droned on about appearing in the form of a deluge, and no savings stashed for it, and President George W. Bush, the debt-spender par excellence, conjuring up a $150-billion stimulus package that evokes the injection of steroids into a prone athlete wrecked by a marathon.
This "shot in the arm," as Bush put it, may dampen a little pain. But this patient will be in intensive care for a long time.
(Continued here.)
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