The real question is: why were you borrowing in the first place? Your story here indicates you assume the initial borrowing happened because we were "living the high life", purchasing luxuries we simply couldn't afford on our incomes, while our incomes remained steady.
In the real world, what has almost universally happened is that our incomes dropped, and we started borrowing to maintain the same standard of living we always had. "Austerity" thus involves a double-whammy: the initial drop in income from straight-up income reduction plus a further drop in standard of living from debt service.
Then we notice that the same guy who owns our credit card and our mortgage is the one who cut our salary. And that's when someone calls me a Communist ;-).
The real question is: why were you borrowing in the first place? Your story here indicates you assume the initial borrowing happened because we were "living the high life", purchasing luxuries we simply couldn't afford on our incomes, while our incomes remained steady.
In the real world, what has almost universally happened is that our incomes dropped, and we started borrowing to maintain the same standard of living we always had. "Austerity" thus involves a double-whammy: the initial drop in income from straight-up income reduction plus a further drop in standard of living from debt service.
Then we notice that the same guy who owns our credit card and our mortgage is the one who cut our salary. And that's when someone calls me a Communist ;-).