In another column David Ignatious concluded, "The public, fortunately, doesn't understand how bad the situation is. If it did, we might have a real panic on our hands".
Panic has not yet set in. Credit cards and home equity lines of credit are allowing Americans to hold on, if only by their fingernails, to their cherished yet unsustainable lifestyles.
But the day is near when they will have no choice but to look down, and we all know what happens then.
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