...Everything Imaginable

"French girls, they want partying, Italian girls want cars. American girls want everything in the world you can possibly imagine..."

Some Girls: Mick Jagger

The greatest thing about America is that you can have anything you want. Except for everything. I think that's why we're in so much trouble right now. Too many of us want everything in the world you can possibly imagine. We wanted it all, we wanted it right now, and we didn't want to pay the price up front, we wanted to put it all on installments.
Some of us wanted to act like the government. We wanted it all on installments and we had no intention of paying for it before we died. Like Scarlett O'hare we wanted to "think about that tomorrow". So it's tomorrow.
If you buy a car for $30,000 and put it on a six-year loan and you actually intend to finish paying for it, how much would you pay for the car? Answer: $30,000. (I'll help you with the hard ones.) Also, you would pay money to rent the money you used to get the thing in the first place.
Why does it never occur to us Americans to drive a beater for a few years, save up $30,000 and just pay for the car? There are lots of great-sounding answers to that question promulgated by car salesmen and loan officers but the real answer is we want the car now because we are too vain to drive a beater until we actually have the money to pay for it.
Car salesmen, and certainly loan officers don't want us thinking this way. If you had $30K in your hand would you give it over to someone who calls you "pal" or "sport" in exchange for a red car? Not likely, unless you had a lot more $$ in your other hand. Cash makes rational thinkers out of most of us.
Our president says we need to get credit flowing again to save our sinking economy. I believe that getting credit, at least consumer credit flowing again will only slow the sink. If we want to save our economy and our collective sanity we need to endure some more pain while Americans pay off their stupid debts, save up cash and then start paying for things when they take (or drive) them home instead of enduring years of worry, interest payments and thoughtless decisions by forever running up our tabs.
You can make a case for credit when buying a modest house, since they tend to increase in value and you have to either own a home or pay someone who does rent to live in one. You may be able to justify some debt to buy fixed assets that produce income in a business. But putting consumer goods and fluffery on a note or plastic at whatever % is madness.
Only by operating in the black can we ever truly save our economy.
And live in peace.