^ Very well said RP... but, I'm not sure about "always having loaners" as I thought I read an article about how the USA would be running low on loaners soon (or something of that effect.)
What you said is a little detailed here in a old article, some comments from Hilary Clinton:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022200468.html
I think the problem/perception of debt is why people think its such a bad thing. To the average schmuck like you and me, debt is bad, bailouts is us paying for the rich and stuff like that. The reality is that every schmuck has their investment in all of this (and alot of it was caused by house-trader schmucks) so its in our best interests to keep on borrowing to get ourselves out of this mess. We just don't know it, so thats why we hire better people then us to make those decisions.
As for "paying off debt" ... I don't think there was ever the intention of paying it off.