This is what happens when you expect the strong to carry the weak. The strong are overburdened, while the weak grow lazier and more entitled. Frankly I don't see the advantage for Germany to stick around and finance this idiocy.

Of the books on finance I've personally read, Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and Thomas Stanley's Millionaire Next Door are perhaps the best. TMMO is a very technical, common denominator method for getting out of debt and building wealth. Stanley's works (I've also read his follow ups, The Millionaire Mind and Stop...more

*yawn* Lately the headlines should be "Morons shrug off great domestic news and metrics in favor of hype over tiny economies overseas." It's a great time to buy, people. Europe can't hold the market so artificially low forever.

Emergency fund HELOC Pay down debt One of these things is not like the others. You say in the opening paragraph that over-leveraging and compulsive debt is what caused the recession and killed the finances of many families. Then you have the gall to say, back to back no less, to get a HELOC and pay down debt?