Interestingly the US and Great Britain complain that some other European countries do not stimulate their economy by encouraging debt financed consummation and

Interestingly the US and Great Britain complain that some other European countries do not stimulate their economy by encouraging debt financed consummation and therefore have export heavy economies (e.g. Germany). I guess this is the flip-side, poor people buying stuff they don't really need, without actually being able to afford them, because they have been conditioned to do so. It's not like you couldn't get a perfectly acceptable couch for a few hundred Euros or even for free. Of course in the current economic climate anyone not investing properly and just saving money is losing roughly 2% to inflation and probably even more because the stock market has risen by much more. So countries where people have traditionally left lots of money in saving accounts get screwed over and those that are in debt are rewarded (the majority in the US and GB).