U.S. Debt grows at slowest pace on record

This type of article can be a little misleading. See the one on Marketwatch, for example. The article is based on the Federal Reserve's report of March 11, 2010, available here. The Marketwatch article talks about consumer "deleveraging". But that is not what is happening in most cases. Consumers and business are walking away from their mortgages, defaulting on their loans and credit cards and declaring personal and business bankruptcies. So the level of debt is falling alright, but deleveraging? Deleveraging occurs when you are paying your debt down, not when you are defaulting on it. It's just more spin. Meanwhile, as you can see from the excerpt below, government debt continues to expand briskly. Some of these folks will eventually also walk away from their debts, methinks.

Percentage changes; quarterly data, seasonally adjusted annual rates

                  Total   Households   Business   State/local gov.   Federal
2009Q4        1.6       -1.2               -3.2                +4.7              +12.6