Brooks on 'The Culture of Debt"

David Brooks has a good column today on modern, rabid consumerism and where it has lead us.

We must clean up predatory lending whose effects on the elderly poor are especially pernicious, but many simply need to get over obsessive consumerism that drives families apart trying to pay for even bigger houses, cars, and yearly weeks at Disney World.

Much of the current financial crisis was driving by artificially low interest rates and yearly (or more) refinancing of homes to remove equity -- that only existed in a bubble -- to purchase excess.

We've driven the nation to the brink of a liquidity crises to buy stuff.