Rising financial decadence

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened.

Our government sees no relationship between personal debt and government debt. Short of dying, personal debt never goes away without credit repercussions. The same is true for countries.