Every once in a while I'm amazed by the degree to which we've become a rentier economy.

Take a look at any graph that measures debt levels, be it credit card, student loan, home loan, or medical, and there's a sheer explosion of indebtedness. From one point of view, this is a consequence of stagnating or falling wages, which is a process that began in the early 70s. Since that time, the American economy has in fact grown, oftentimes quite dramatically. But wages have been kept flat, so that every dollar of new growth has been funneled to those at the top. Consequently, in order to maintain a half decent quality of life, most of us have to finance this on debt. For example, people used to be able to pay for college by working summers, but wages have been kept flat for almost 50 years, so that paying your way through college is now impossible. As a result, we see an explosion in student debt, as it's the only way most people can finance higher education.

Aside from the knee jerk conservative reaction that ignores or doesn't care about the economic reality that created this indebtedness, and that instead chooses to blame debtors for their indebtedness (being poor or homeless is always a choice!), we don't give enough attention to what this means about how the economy has changed.

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