How Telling Is This?

Over at CNN.com, I saw the headline "Americans' debt shrinks - 1st time ever" and couldn't help but think, "Wow."

The statistic in question has been tracked since 1952, and this is the first time that household debt has declined, quarter-to-quarter. They talk in the article about how American net worth dropped even more precipitously (4.7% compared to 0.8% for their debt) but that's more understandable, what with both the housing and stock markets crashing over the past several months. But just think: at no point in the past 56 years had the total debt ever gone down (until now)! Some of that may be linked to inflation (meaning, you're getting deeper in debt in pure dollar terms, but adjusted for inflation those figures might be flat or the trend could be even slightly reversed) but I suspect most of it simply reflects an ever-increasing movement by most Americans away from limiting themselves to what they can actually afford.

I've posted here about my distaste for debt, and even made mention of it within an Issue of the 2nd AgileMan book, entitled "Death to Debt!" It continues to boggle my mind that people would embrace debt as gleefully as so many seem to do, but maybe that particular run of insanity is finally going to run its course? If so, then it's happening out of necessity rather than any widespread awakening to the folly of debt, and that's too bad. But I guess any reason is better than nothing!