There are two ways to buy Chinese slave labor produced stuff you don’t need at one of our millions of mega-retailers. You can pay cash from your latest payroll direct deposit or you can whip out one of your eight credit cards and do it the American way.
A measure of how delusional and desperate the average American has become is to divide their total consumer debt by their total salary and wages. The chart below tells the true story about the average American. Back in the pre-delusional days, before the banksters and their propaganda media had convinced the willingly ignorant public that debt financed purchases equaled wealth, consumer debt divided by salaries and wages ranged from 24% to 30%.
Around the time that Greenspan made his irrational exuberance speech, the American public went full retard and have never looked back. The 2000 crash brought about a momentary pause at 32%, but Greenspan’s easy money from 2001 through 2006 created a materialistic consumption frenzy and drove the ratio to 40%. Who needed wages when credit cards and GMAC subprime auto loans could allow you to appear wealthy to your neighbors.
The housing and financial system collapse again leveled the percentage at the 40% level. The storyline being sold to the sheep over the last few years is that millions of jobs have been created and consumer austerity has resulted in the average American repairing their balance sheet. If we were really experiencing a jobs recovery, wages would be rising. If consumers were being austere, their consumer debt would be declining. The ratio would be declining.
As anyone with two eyes can see, the ratio is currently at an all-time high of 43%. The proliferation of subprime auto loans and government issued student loan debt, along with declining real wages, has driven the ratio to new heights. How much higher can it go? The jobs market is as good as it is going to get. The bad debt has already begun to rise.
For this ratio to fall to a sustainable level would require a surge in salaries and wages and/or a dramatic reduction in consumer debt. The surge in salaries and wages is not in the cards. Not a chance in this warped warfare/welfare state. The coming financial collapse will result in billions of consumer debt being defaulted upon. This ratio will decline as our delusional consumption society implodes. Infinity and beyond is not sustainable. We will be crashing back to earth.
