Family Indebtedness and Government Indebtedness as Siamese Twins in the Modern World

摘要

This work seeks to explore the ties between certain aspects of government indebtedness in various countries (and the indebtedness of public budgets at large) and indebtedness of families in modern developed economies. It is presumed that both of these significant (and, to a large degree, shaping) features of modern economies demonstrate some common development characteristics. Despite the differences between national economies that modern states shape to their liking and the situation of families in developed countries that are coerced to act within the limits outlined by the legal framework imposed by governments, a number of similar behavioural patterns may be identified between the two groups. A substantial amount of evidence exists that proves the thesis that a change in the behaviour of modern families stems out of not just the increased focus of banks on retail clients but also of the idea of indebtedness as an acceptable and natural model of behaviour, with the modern states leading by their example. In this respect, the question ensues whether after a several decades of defaults of states we are about to experience defaults of families on a mass scale.