NY Times - The Price of Printing Money

The New York Times

Debt Sweat
Printing Money – and Its Price
By PETER S. GOODMAN

Borrowing and spending beyond ordinary limits largely explains how Americans got into such economic trouble. For decades, businesses and consumers feasted relentlessly, as if gravity, arithmetic and the tyranny of debt had been defanged by financial engineering.

Armed with credit cards and belief in a bountiful future, Americans brought home ceaseless volumes of iPods and cashmere sweaters, and never mind their declining incomes and winnowing savings. Banks lent staggering sums of money to homeowners with dubious credit, convinced that real estate prices could only go up. Government spent as it saw fit, secure that foreigners could always be counted on to finance American debt...

Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/weekinreview/28goodman.html?ref=weekinreview