A couple of weeks ago, commenter River, at Ricochet, put up a post with the above title. There’s no point in linking it, since it’s in the Member Feed section which is available only to paying Ricochet members, but I think it’s important enough to excerpt some of it here.
River quotes Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, on the hidden costs of indebtedness:
With the U.S. debt now approaching $14.5 trillion, Americans are watching their elected officials debating whether the debt ceiling should be raised to allow the country to borrow even more money. President Obama has warned that if we don’t borrow more money, the federal government may not be able to make payments to Social Security recipients.
Very little has been written about the psychological effects of the American population living under a mountain of debt, but those effects are very substantial. Chief among them is a sense of being disempowered and anxiety-ridden—both individually and collectively—and, therefore, unable to assert our values here at home, let alone abroad.
