I continue to feel disturbed about the economic situation of many American citizens. This blog post offers some good visual to explain the rise in household debt during the past twenty or so years. In particular, household debt is increasing at a much faster rate than household income, while household spending is increasing at a slightly faster rate than household income. This shows that the effects of debt can be quite expensive.

The Federal Reserve has tracked household debt as a percentage of income since the late eighties. What this chart shows is that households are increasingly carrying more debt. It's interesting that renters tend to carry significantly more total debt than home owners.

The reason why many of us think we're not carrying much debt is because we compare ourselves to the Joneses'. If we're all stuck in a big hole of debt together, it doesn't look so bad.

It looks like an individual may receive a refund of $600-$1200 due to the bipartisan economic stimulus package. I don't think this stimulus package is going to fix any problems over the long term. However, since the American way is to spend more than you earn, I suggest that you take your six hundred dollars and put it down on a $40,000 Lexus. Don't just buy a TV. That isn't enough to stimulate the economy. Everyone else is doing it! You should be one of the cool people!