Owen Strachan:
NYT columnist David Brooks has a thoughtful column out today called “The Next Culture War” that suggests that the shameful levels of debt our country is now carrying are a moral issue. He’s got a great point, I think, though I disagree with him on a number of matters (the “culture wars” and the issues raised in them are actually of great importance, easy as they are to skewer intellectually).
Here’s the bottom line of his argument:
In 1960, Americans’ personal debt amounted to about 55 percent of national income. By 2007, Americans’ personal debt had surged to 133 percent of national income.
Over the past few months, those debt levels have begun to come down. But that doesn’t mean we’ve re-established standards of personal restraint.
Read the whole thing here.
