The message, for the imagined communist audience, is that Western culture can turn anything into fodder to binge.

In some places Greece, Italy, and Portugal the money financed an unsustainable public spending binge. In others Spain and Ireland it financed the delusions of private real estate developers.

People are using the latest technologies and toting shopping bags bearing the names of international luxury brands. Their rising prosperity is also reflected in the retail sectors of Tokyo and Seoul, where increasingly wealthy Chinese tourists engage in binge shopping.

But they have not prevented a borrowing binge in their private sectors. Since private debts have a way of turning into public liabilities, a low government debt burden might not, in fact, provide these countries with the cushion that they think they have.

Carols, church bells, and mangers are still at the heart of mid winter festivities, alongside the consumer binge. This year, however, the big spend in Europe may have been inhibited by the big winter freeze and the big austerity programs across most of the continent.

In the years leading up to the crisis, two bubbles property and credit 160 fueled a record high personal consumption binge. When the bubbles burst, households understandably became fixated on balance sheet repair namely, paying down debt and rebuilding personal savings, rather than resuming excessive spending habits.

In the years leading up to the crisis, two bubbles property and credit fueled a record high personal consumption binge. When the bubbles burst, households understandably became fixated on balance sheet repair namely, paying down debt and rebuilding personal savings, rather than resuming excessive spending habits.

Such recovery as there has been in the luxury market has been largely limited to so called affordable luxuries shoes, handbags, or ties, rather than yachts or fast cars. Purchases of these relatively low cost items can be regarded as the withdrawal symptoms of the world s consumer binge.

Low interest rates eventually jump started the expansion through a house price bubble that supported a debt financed consumer spending binge and triggered a construction boom. Meanwhile, prolonged low interest rates contributed to a chase for yield in the financial sector that resulted in disregard of credit risk.

Were the Governing Council to miss the coming turn in the European economy while blithely raising interest rates, they would be portrayed as drunken sailors on a rate raising binge. The roar for greater political control over Europe s central bank would be deafening and not only from France.

Second, more investment is needed, particularly in low income countries, emerging markets, and oil producers (though less in China, the exception that proves the rule). But the answer is not a low quality investment binge led by government or fuelled by easy credit we know the consequences of that.

Thus, neo Keynesians have tried to spur more housing investment through rock bottom interest rates, more auto purchases through securitized consumer loans, and more shovel ready infrastructure projects through short term stimulus programs. When investment spending does not budge, they recommend that we turn excess saving into another consumption binge.

For example, visitors to Chongqing marvel at the soaring skyscrapers and modern infrastructure built during Bo s tenure there. But do they know that Bo s administration borrowed the equivalent of more than 50 of local GDP to finance the construction binge, and that a large portion of the debt will go unpaid?

The third point is more diagnostic The shockingly anemic pattern of post crisis US consumer demand has resulted from a deep Japan like balance sheet recession. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the 12 year pre crisis US consumer spending binge was built on a precarious foundation of asset and credit bubbles.

Heart disease might not seem like a pressing issue for poor nations, but it represents more than a quarter of their death toll. Measures to reduce risk factors other than smoking high intake of saturated animal fat, obesity, binge drinking of alcohol, physical inactivity, and low fruit and vegetable consumption have had little success.

Over time, this marriage of convenience morphed into a full blown and inherently unhealthy codependency. Both partners took the relationship for granted and pushed unbalanced growth models too far the US with its asset and credit bubbles that underpinned a record consumption binge, and China with an export led resurgence that was ultimately dependent on America s consumption bubble.

Since the first quarter of 2009, when the US economy was bottoming out after its worst postwar recession, exports have accounted for fully 41 of the subsequent rebound. That s right with the American consumer on ice in the aftermath of the biggest consumption binge in history, the US economy has drawn its sustenance disproportionately from foreign markets.

And all of this green stuff here, including the spikes which are because you couldn't get to the pharmacy, or you ran out of drugs, or you went on a three day party binge and forgot to take your drugs, or because you've started to get resistance, or whatever all of that is virus that wouldn't be out there, except for treatment.

When business investment committees become more cautious, we expect to see the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and others lower interest rates to make the numbers more attractive. If consumers go on a spending binge, we expect the world's central banks to raise interest rates to cool off construction spending and free up the resources needed to prevent shortage inducing inflation.

In that sense, although China, with its 3.5 trillion stock of foreign exchange reserves, may seem to exemplify emerging economies tendency to be over insured against external risks, it actually faces the same credit risks as its counterparts. The difference is that China has implemented structural and thus longer lasting credit based policies, while other emerging economies have been drawn into a cyclical lending binge.

Government spending especially on unemployment benefits, aid to states, and some construction projects probably helped avert a more wrenching downturn, but continued red ink worries households, which are also trying to rebuild savings and reduce debt after a spending binge. The regulatory uncertainty created in areas such as health care makes it difficult not only for the health care industry to make long term investment decisions, but also for businesses to make long term hires.