Anthony Randazzo on How Private Debt Is Crippling the Economy

America's economic pundits are not very creative, observes Anthony Randazzo. For the past several years, their gripes about economic growth have fallen into several staid categories: Monetary policy ("the Fed should do less" vs. "the Fed should do more"); the struggling housing market ("let housing bottom out" vs. "we must save housing"); income inequality ("it doesn't matter" vs. "it does matter"); and the federal deficit ("lower taxes, pretend to lower spending a lot" vs. "raise taxes, pretend to lower spending a little").

While most of these are legitimate causes of economic stagnation, Randazzo writes, there is another category that is having an outsized negative impact on growth: privately held debt. Simply put, there won't be a recovery until credit card and household debt levels come down.