Millenials are burdened by debt. That's very different from "Americans." Lo and behold: consumers, when given a chance, act like corporations. "Debt" is actually "leverage" and economists love it (welcome to bizarro-world). If I owe you and you owe me we have reason to continue to do business together as we both gain from it. The economic slump is probably due to the fact that things would have been downright humungus-eating-dogfood apocalyptic if world governments hadn't dumped preposterous amounts of cash on the investment class, thereby preserving their positions at the top of the heap. It could be argued that our current slump is because we have a socialist financial system propping up our capitalist financial system and the supports are so essential that the capitalist overlay simply doesn't have the strength to stand up on its own two feet. But you won't hear Jim Cramer say that.