I generally like Alan Greenspan's Age of Turbulence, but I disagreed with how he could look at graphs like this and say it shows just how confident US consumers are in the future of the economy.

I've been eyeing school debt, & health care debt as the next 2 bubbles, but I might have to rethink after this.

I have read that but it has been a while. Was that not about the Federal Reserve and of course the big bankers that run it? I get that part, but still no-one held a gun to borrowers heads. What am I missing?

Wow. Excellent comment. I more than agree.

Read the Creature From Jekyll Island to see the predatory practices and the manipulations that the bankers went through to create their license to steal. I agree that people who took out bad loans are partly responsible, but the banks were, too, and for their actions they rewarded themselves by crashing the economy and ruining millions of others who can't recover the years of saving to rebuild their retirement.
When we were young and had no money, banks used interest rates to take from us because we were young and had not had the time to save. The only meaningful way to reduce income tax for us was to buy a home, so we did. Note the imposition of the income tax in the same year as the federal reserve act was not a coincidence. Many saved through the years trying to prepare for retirement when we could not work effectively. Those of us who weren't devastated by the economic crash the banks created are now having our savings rendered nearly meaningless by banks who manipulate interest rates again. They do this only because the corrupt puppet government has given them the power to loot from us. The banking cartel's control of the money means that we have no voice and no way to productively respond except revolution. I know hundreds of innocent people who have worked productively all their lives without profligately spending, yet may be dependent on a fascist government thanks to the banking cartel. They get no quarter from me.

I agree with much that you say but I'm not going to blame banks. Yes there may have been some banks that used predatory practices but they did not hold a gun to people's heads to sign a loan. Personally, I still believe it is the individual's responsibility to not borrow more than they can pay back under even the most extreme conditions.

I expect it's worse since so many lost a substantial part of their savings in the economic crash.
Nobody learned that bankers created the crash, were beneficiaries, and controlled the con-gress that gave them trillions in bail outs either. How did the banks respond? By withholding funding of the recovery of productive enterprise. Government, of course, responded with looting as usual: more foreign wars, more domestic spying, more impediments to business, overwhelming additional costs (Obamacare et al) on small business to benefit favored big businesses. A large part of the economy is predicated on consumers making ill considered choices to support large businesses whose business plans require eternal growth of consumer spending. People are continually encouraged to consume and spend regardless of their financial condition, instead of taking responsibility for their own future. Lots of small businesses have failed and their employees and owners lost their jobs and investments primarily due to the banking cartel and secondarily to federal interference and looting.

The only solution is to stop reacting to fear mongering by statists, and their toady journalists.
Stop voting for the traitors who have betrayed us for 50 years.

That is a scary chart.

I've heard that personal debt is in no better shape than it was in 2008 but have no way of knowing for sure. This seems to tell me what I've heard may in fact be true. No lessons learned from 2008???