Thank Amy Bell for helping keep the U.S. economy afloat. Bell, a 27-year-old benefits manager in Atlanta, bought a studio condominium with no money down, leased a Volkswagen Passat, and spent $2,300 on a set of living room furniture―all in the past six months. "I have been going a bit crazy with the spending," she says. That's for sure. Bell and plenty of other people are piling up huge debts. The amount that Americans owe on loans for houses, cars, credit cards, and other purchases adds up to nearly 100% of their annual income after taxes. That's up from 75% in 1992, after the last recession ended. Even if consumers are willing to take on more debt, lenders―and more important, the investors who buy many of the loans they securitize―may soon decide that enough is enough. If the credit crunch now squeezing business starts to hit consumers, whose spending accounts for two-thirds of gross domestic product, the U.S. economy could wind up in a world of trouble.
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