The big question is how did we get in this mass and how do we get out?
We got into it by over spending at all levels. Be it GWB taking on a war the US simply could not afford or you and I buying on credit something we could not pay for in cash. And coupled with that is the money was not being kept in the country.
How much of the budget for the invasion of Iraq has ended up in Iraq and will never come back?
How many of the goods you bought were made overseas? Just look at the
list of billionaires how many of them are wealthy by taking jobs from the West and then selling the goods back to us?
China a few years ago could hardly feed itself, not it's one of the richest countries in the world, lending the world money for bonds and shares, might end up owning the world because of this. All because we needed to have the new Nike $150 football shirt made by a Chinese worker on a fraction of our wages. Nike got rich, the Chinese factory owner got rich and a peasant got a job indoors rather than planting rice. And we got our over priced, badly made, obsolete in a year football shirt.
Apart from the inflated values of the debts on property and shares the world is no poorer than it should be. It's just that the wealth has been shifted to other countries.
How do we get out of it?
Tough one as we are now so far in debt to countries like China that they have to part of the solution. But the basic method has to be we
spend what we earn. Plus repay the massive debts we are all guilty of running up or allowing our politicians to run up.