Debt levels.

• Author: Rees, Matthew
• Position: Just the Facts: TIE's Executive News Service

"Since 1983, debt has expanded by 8.9 percent a year, GDP by 5.9 percent. The disparity in growth rates may not look like much, but it generated a powerful result over time. Over the 25 years, total debt--private and public, financial and non-financial--has risen by $45.1 trillion, GDP by only $10.9 trillion.

--Wall Street Journal, October 18

"The aggregate stock of U.S. debt rose from a mere 163 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 346 percent in 2007. Just two sectors of the economy were responsible for this massive rise in leverage: households, whose indebtedness...