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...don't think the telemarketers didn't factor fines like this in the price they charged clients.

This is $300 billion/year industry.

If your money is created from nothing at the point of a loan and you want to inflate the money supply then you also have to increase the (exponentially growing) debt at the same time.

Now, if you want the "economy" to grow then clearly you have to increase the supply of money faster than the interest on the debt which is consuming credit, or you get a recession.

Whether the debt is public debt, private debt or corporate debt, is irrelevant. The debt must be created. Or at least, it will be until you run out of people willing or able to take on and service the debt, then the system collapses. Doesn't this requirement for perpetual growth sound like something else?

It is a predictable exponential function and therefore has a doubling time, so yes, you could create a "law" about it.

The national debt, the credit crunch, the stockmarket crisis are all the inevitable result of the way your money is created... Long may it continue.
 

I should have added a link.

This gets into part of it, but it should help
make the picture a little clearer.

http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20011115_acornreport.htm

This almost looks like it was planned at some level,
maybe not for the results, but the statistics don't lie.

It's the credit card which can bork your FICO score due to it's practice of reporting "Highest Balance" instead of "Credit Limit" to the credit bureaus, so your utilization ratio looks artifically high. More info on Crapital One.

Most of the times in America, we wait for disasters to happen before we spend enormous amounts off money and time to fix them.

There is no 13th floor.

Nope, what we have is froth.

and most can even manage a decent house/condo/apartment with cool things like air conditioning, heating, running water

Actually, multi-family residence is at an all time high (not to mention adults still living with parents). The fact is, in some parts of the country many people can not afford a decent place to live on a single income. In fact, at the current rate it is estimated that a very large percentage of the US citizens will require the pay of THREE full time jobs to afford decent housing. (Keep your eye on Realty Times as they discuss this issue from time to time.)

Remember, once upon a time, a SINGLE income family could afford a decent home.

Some things are better now days, but some things are very decidedly going down hill.

What's the ratio of people in the US who rent/lease a home to those who own?

Yes, people buy lots of stuff on credit - I'm not arguing that. However, I would argue that the average American would strongly agree that owning something is better than renting/leasing it.

This has, in fact, been one of the main reasons I've seen people complain about software licenses, since there's a strong feeling that despite allegedly owning something you don't really own anything as there are so many restrictions. I don't know anyone who agrees with the "use only on the original system / no resale / no support / you get nothing" clauses, which is why they tend to be ignored so frequently.