If you're in debt, you're headed for trouble. Get out of debt today!

No, this isn't an ad for debt counseling although that opening line does resemble the pitch I hear during almost every commercial break. "I had five thousand dollars in credit card debt and so-and-so helped me get back on my feet." Only five thousand dollars in credit card debt? Lucky you. Try $50,000 or $100,000 in credit card debt. Add to it a couple of unsecured loans. Toss in a $250,000 mortgage on a house that's now worth $180,000. Finish it off with a student loan of any amount. Now, that sounds more interesting, and, unfortunately, more realistic. This and similar scenarios are lead weights fastened to the feet of our economy. The Federal Reserve can trade easy loans for the bad debt of the nation's banks and brokerages in hopes of keeping everyone liquid, but consumer debt will keep the economy grounded.

Personal debt starts out as an opportunity. A credit card company offers you a plastic rectangle with a bunch of numbers engraved in it. With your signature, you can buy things even if you haven't got the cash to cover the purchases. It's exhilarating to walk into a store, snatch what you want and hand over a card that declares, "I have excellent credit." Now, in the back of your mind, you see yourself paying off those purchases at the end of the month and avoiding finance fees. But, come now, isn't easier to just pay the minimum required? After all, this won't become a habit, right? Unfortunately, it does become a habit. And, it has become a habit because credit has been so easy to get.

The ease of obtaining credit pumped air into the housing bubble that burst last August. It also pumped air into a consumer debt bubble that has yet to burst. If you're looking for a second shoe to drop following the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, look no further than consumer debt. Most of us (Americans who work without benefit of trust funds) are actually earning less than we once did, or at least less than the previous generation earned. Yet, we have filled our over-valued homes with stuff, lots of stuff. We purchased multiple vehicles, for every kid in the family must have a car to drive upon arriving at the age of 16. Some of these vehicles have bottomless fuel tanks and a rabid thirst for gasoline. In some cases, we bought more house than we could really afford, but the mortgage offers were too good to pass up.

All right, so we over did it. We took Auntie Mame's advice and lived, lived, lived!

Debt doesn't become a problem right away. Because it can build slowly, we get used to it. It becomes something we manage like the rest of our bills. And, for a while, it seems quite manageable. And, it grows, in dollars and as a percentage of our income. We tell ourselves that we'll be earning more money over the next couple of years and we'll be able to manage it, maybe even pay it down. But, along the way come surprises. The credit card companies begin to raise their interest rates. The 16% interest they were charging us becomes 29.99%. Interest rates of 30% and nobody accuses the credit card companies of usury. Then we notice that minimum payments have gone from 1.5% or 2% to 4% or 5% or %6 of the balance. Meanwhile the extra income we'd planned on making is washed away by inflation - at the gas pump and the supermarket. Then along comes another surprise, someone in the family gets sick, really sick, and a cascade of medical bills hits the mailbox. Just one little medical bill can empty our meager savings account which earned us next to nothing in interest anyway. We look for cash and we find it in whatever equity we've built in our homes. Meanwhile there are more surprises. We find that the value of our house has fallen. We can't squeeze any more cash out of our house because it is valued at less than its mortgage. We go back to our credit cards and look for any remaining credit there to get by. To our amazement, most of them are maxed. In fact, now we're incurring monthly over limit fees and our available cash is now negative. We cut back on expenses everywhere we can, but there are some expenses we can no longer manage: our mortgage and our credit card bills. We begin to miss payments and, surprise; we incur new penalties called late fees, which drive our debt burden higher and higher. What's left to do but call a bankruptcy attorney?

Now, to some wise folks among you, this seems an exaggeration. How could a rational person allow debt to get so out of control? How indeed? Because credit was made so easy to begin with, and because for decades, politicians and a number of economists pooh-poohed debt as being unimportant. As long as we're earning and growing, economically, debt is not a problem, they said. In theory they have a point. In reality, they're out of their minds. As workers, we don't always keep earning. Sometimes, we lose our jobs or our businesses. Sometimes we keep our jobs or businesses but our wages can't keep pace with prices. When either of these things happens, and we're carrying lots of debt, we're headed for problems because debt grows regardless. As we approach insolvency, debt compounds. It becomes a monster, a devil, a Goliath.

Debt isn't particular about its victims.

While the experts point their fingers of blame at "stupid" consumers, the great banks and brokerages of America have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. They, too, are carrying lots of debt and have run to the federal gov'ment for help. We also find that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who between them hold 80% of Americans' mortgages, are not doing so well either. And since, they're both, shall I say, the illegitimate children of the gov'ment, the gov'ment must back them up. Oh, and speaking of the gov'ment which is busy bailing out and backing up, it, too, is heavily in debt. In fact, our gov'ment is so far in debt that it must rely on $18 billion a day in foreign investment in our debt to keep going. And, it's not just the federal gov'ment that is suffering from the debt disease. State and local gov'ments are pinched by debt as well. In California, it's deja vu for budget shortfalls. But, enterprising Governor Arnold Schwartzen-what's-his-name has a bold solution. He wants to issue bonds to raise cash - bonds that are actually bets that the state lottery will raise $20 billion in revenue. What if the he and his bond purchasers bet wrong? And, they call us consumers irrational, careless, and stupid?!

The next time someone asks me if I think we're past the worst of our economic troubles, I'll tell him or her, gently but firmly, no. And, when he or she asks why, I'll offer this simple, one-word answer: debt.