According to an article in the Wall Street Journal today, percentage of consumer income (after taxes) going towards debt has edged up to 14% since 1990.

But the opposite is true in the corporate sector, where income which has gone to pay off debt has gone from over 25% in 2001 to 11% in 2007. So the overall vision of the the economy being dragged down by excessive debt is not true for corporations.

The perception of consumers being awash in debt is born out not only by an increase in mortgage forclosures, but big credit card issuers such as American Express and General Electric financial divisions are experiencing big write offs and delinquencies as well. Retail sales are also down.

So maybe the economic recession isn’t as bad as we think?

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