Yeah. It's pretty ludicrous all right.

The public in North America has always (well, since the 60s anyway) been encouraged to buy on credit and spend money they don't yet have. That's because they will end up paying interest charges to the lenders that way. The entire financial system is built on creating massive debt, both in terms of the ordinary public and in terms of the government and big business. It's disingenuous to blame the ordinary public for it when they are constantly encouraged and given tempting incentives to do it by those in control of lending the money. The result is inevitable...a bubble of spending and inflation is created, it gets too big, and then it bursts. When it does, the little guys lose out, but the big guys simply get a bailout and they buy up all the stuff that the little guys had to dump at a bargain price. Then the whole cycle starts up again....boom and bust...boom and bust...boom and bust. Thus are great fortunes made and many people impoverished.