The glowing merchandise in the local shopping mall, which tempts us to accumulate personal debt, and so on.
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The aim is to raise money, buy up packaged personal debt in the secondary markets and then strike it out.
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The current unfunded liabilities are more than five times the personal debt of the average household, including mortgages, loans and credit cards.
Ford said it believed the problems in Europe, where personal debt and government austerity is biting into consumers' income, was "structural, rather than cyclical".
"An over-reliance on the housing bubble and personal debt exaggerated income growth in the run-up to the recession, " said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
He emphatically stated that college graduates in 2011 would accumulate more personal debt than any graduating class before them in the United States.
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Personal debt (mortgage and other) hovers at 100% of annual GDP.
It's a contrarian bet for a nation that abhors personal debt.
Those of us who were in Washington that day, without knowing it for sure at the time, now know we owe them an overwhelming special, personal debt of gratitude.
Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken of his personal debt to Baroness Thatcher, on the day of her funeral, saying she inspired him to become a Conservative in the 1980s.
The fall, registered by the central bank in the three months to June, is the first in four years, after a credit glut which has seen personal debt soar to record levels.
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Bank of England figures published earlier this month showed that in July the total amount of personal debt in the UK fell for the first time since records began in 1993 as people reduced their mortgage borrowing.
Growth is undoubtedly fragile, given the risks of a worse downturn in the world economy (as the chancellor emphasised), and the worryingly rapid accumulation of personal debt that has helped to buoy consumption (which he neglected to mention).
We American voters might respond that most of us do not receive automatic inflation adjustments to our earnings and we are expected to tighten our belts when times are tough and our personal debt has gotten out of control.
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U.K. consumers, who have some of the highest personal debt levels in Europe, are bound to start watching their spending more closely this year, and many economists expect interest rates and taxes will gradually start to rise, which will crimp spending further.
Even in India, where defaults on personal debt rose sharply during the global financial crisis, the number of credit cards outstanding ticked up 7% to 18.9 million last year, driven in part by Western players such as Citigroup and Standard Chartered PLC.
He drew on a warning from economists about this economic downturn and said: "Normally a state debt is with its own inhabitants but this time it is international so you cannot increase tax to hit debtors, pensions and demography are against us at this moment in time, and other instances of debt overhang there has not been the same level of personal debt".
The ratio of debt to personal disposable income has doubled since the late 1980s, to over 100%.
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Meanwhile, credit card debt and personal loans, which carry steep interest rates, were a much smaller part of the individuals' overall liabilities.
Like Spain, Britain did pretty well in the first years of this century but also allowed some serious imbalances to build up in its economy, with a property boom and an explosion in the amount of personal and financial sector debt.
The recession left a vast legacy of foreclosures, personal and business bankruptcies, debt-collection and credit-card disputes.
Household wealth and personal income spiked, but debt climbed faster peaking at 359 percent of GDP before the crash.
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The same principle led to fundamental changes in personal bankruptcy laws--debt could be wiped out or rescheduled without a person's having to go to debtors' prison.
The job ad acknowledges Valve's debt to the personal computer but said the firm was trying to speed up the pace of innovation by "jumping in" itself.
The media tycoon and owner of soccer club AC Milan -- who previously served three terms as prime minister -- was forced to step down amid an escalating eurozone debt crisis and personal legal battles.
The consumer not only lacks for nothing, but also is paying down debt or building up personal savings.
The data point most utilized by those who espouse the idea of a healthy consumer is the household debt service ratio (DSR), a metric that relates debt payments to disposable personal income.
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