I've always known that when a media outlet runs a story about how Americans are just one card swipe away from debtor's prison it's more about how slow the news is that day than it is about any real debt danger. Now I have proof. Disappearing frogs have been a harbinger of imminent environmental collapse since at least 1981 (when I first remember reading about it), and the growth of consumer debt in the US has been the final signal of economic end times since at least 1985. Like most apocalypses, history's stubborn refusal to end as scheduled simply causes our prophets to move the goal posts and start ringing their bells again.

It has, I suppose, always been thus.