That's not necessarily bad. As long it's credit for durable goods not experiencing bubbled up prices. There's good and bad leverage. Good leverage is essential to develop a healthy economy.
The thing of it is, there really aren't many (if any) goods purchased by consumers that are genuinely durable goods under that definition. Houses, possibly, but we clearly know that can turn out badly. Everything else. . . . well, everything else depreciates, most often quickly. Cars, televisions, appliances, and so on.
There just isn't a return on investment in terms of dollars and cents for consumer purchases that justifies the use of debt. If a business borrows money, they're just leveraging to increase profits. If a consumer borrows money, it's typically because they're not patient enough to wait until they have the cash (been there, done that, know from personal experience).
Anyway, the point of everything I said is to say this: I don't think there's good leverage for consumers, with the possible exception of student loans and a mortgage (for a reasonable house!). Everything else is just impatience.
EDIT: Given my school loans I'm actually pretty skeptical of the utility of student debt, too.
I'm tempted to say there are edge cases, say your car broke down, you need some repairs, it's within your budget, but you can't pay until your next payday in 4 days, but you need it fixed today. That's what we've all been told is the sort of ideal situation a credit card is good for - but then I realize, that implies you are living check to check - which is already a bad position to be in - the credit card might save you in that moment, but it won't fix the overall financial problem you have.
(gonna ramble here) As soon as people start working, whether in highschool, college, or after, they should start forming a cushion. That cushion should on average grow throughout their entire working life. This isn't retirement savings. It's not an investment. When it gets big enough, sure, you can cap it and start investing, etc.. you don't need 10 years living expenses sitting in the bank.... but what about 6 months? What about a year? That's not absurd to me. Imagine the comfort of knowing you can lose your job, maybe be a bit more frugal, maybe pause on contributing to your retirement fund and no big vacation this year, but you have enough liquid cash in the bank that you don't need to work for a year. That cash becomes something you treasure. You don't WANT to dip into it. You won't just blow it on junk once it gets bigger. YOu won't just take a year off for fun - you'll just take comfort in the fact that you don't care when payday is and can think long term. You can make rational decisions about your job, changes in life, etc. It keeps you far, far away from the punishing cycle of debt the banking industry makes it so easy for you to get caught up in. It gives you HUGE leverage in financial situations.
It's basically cash in the bank that you can call on at any time. Anyone who has been working more than a few months should not be living paycheck to paycheck - if we could just get that message across to more people, things would be a lot better for all. People always say "oh, easy for you to say, I have expenses, blah blah....". Those same people, if given a 50% raise, will tend to increase their spending habits by 50% and still live paycheck to paycheck.
We need to stop thinking like a credit society. The credit score needs to stop being the most important financial market we measure by.
Even when it comes to housing - We need to stop talking about "buying a house" when we mean "mortgaging a house".
Everyone always counters with "Well, how else am I supposed to afford a house?". One answer might be "If you don't have enough to buy the house outright, you CANT afford the house". Sure, there are reasonably low risk situations responsible people can put themselves in and buy rather than rent, and come out ahead - but how many people actually do that -vs- get into the danger zone? I wonder.
Some cultures work for the benefit of future generations - they are a generation ahead at all times. The parents buy the house and pay for school for the kids when they grow up/get married/whatever, as their parents did for them. The kids, grown up, finished school, work to save up money to buy their kids an education and a house, and so on. What rule says we have to stay behind, when we could be a generation ahead with a little planning?
TL;DR: Agreed
My argument is that for the last many years normal households have been buying stuff they can't afford with money they don't have. And now that the housing prices aren't rising anymore they have serious trouble since they can't take out another mortgage on their house.
http://www.esa.doc.gov/about-economic-indicators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good
A car loses 30% of its value as you roll it off the lot, and it continues losing value steadily until the cost of keeping it on the road surpasses the cost of buying a replacement.