Our society has been on a consumption binge.

Low interest rates and big budget deficits have helped in the short term, by fueling a consumption binge in the United States.

Analysts see few signs that the consumption binge will abate.

Most economists, however, like a value-added tax, saying it would help tilt the economy away from its consumption binge and toward increased saving and investment.

The central bank certainly has the power to stop a private-bank bailout, a fire sale to foreigners or a voucher-profit consumption binge.

It appears that we're witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge.

We have to borrow from abroad to continue our consumption binge and to support even the inadequate level of real investing that we do.

But the past eight years has to be described as a consumption binge rather than an investment binge.

We are a rich nation, well able to afford a consumption binge.

Unlike other countries we have bailed out, South Korea did not go on a consumption binge.