Deleveraging...

It is peculiar that in these times of crisis, the spam industry changes from blue pills to credit relief.

Fortunately, we deleveraged during 2003/2005.

Back then it seemed pretty clear that White House's "policy goal" was to keep the consumer spending lost with outsourcing and the bursting of tech bubble by providing cheap credit and using dubious lending practices (I used to work for PriceWaterhouse auditing Banks)

If on top of that setup free market supporters start to play "shock-and-awe" with financial derivatives, the downside became pretty nasty.

Markets can only function with free flow of information. Financial derivatives markets are like a backroom full of smoke. No clear information, if any, about financial instruments with limitless downside.

So no mortgage, no credit card debt, just trying to make an honest buck with hard work :-}