From Credit Slips:
At the end of 2006, there was $12,588,200,000,000 outstanding in household debt — defined as consumer debt and mortgage debt combined. But there was only $11,065,500,000,000 in personal income for 2006. (Those are trillions of dollars.) If the United States spent none of its personal income for one year on “trivial” things like food, shelter, taxes, and medical care, it would still be inadequate to pay off our car loans, home mortgages, credit cards, and other personal indebtedness. This was not true as recently as 2003.
