You are so right. This is a debt deleveraging economy. There are studies by McKinsey and the new book, “This Time is Different” by economists Rogoff and Reinhart that show these processes take five to seven years. People will slowly reduce debt. This will put a drag on the economy for sure, but it also changes people's view of money, debt and happiness.

Your point about your Dad and coupons is so true. I starting using a site called restaurants.com when it first came out years ago. I would hand the voucher or coupon to a waiter or waitress, and he or she had no clue what it was. He or she would take it to a manager to figure it out. Today, I hand the coupon over and the server knows exactly what it is as more people are using them.

I've been commenting over as Wise Bread about one particular borrower's situation:

http://www.wisebread.com/citimortage-told-me-to…

Oh, and I like the ZeroHedge article + comments. I think that you're right, people are changing their attitudes towards defaulting, and I think that's a good thing. The stigma of defaulting, or even being foreclosed upon, is rapidly disappearing which will help facilitate the recovery process. Like Barry says, we need more foreclosures, not less foreclosures.

Along those lines, I think people's attitudes towards debt in general is changing. It's no longer cool to be a spendthrift with a maxed out credit card. Rather, it's cool to be frugal and save your money.

I've already seen this within my own family. My father, for the first time ever, used coupons when he purchased Christmas gifts. And here's the kicker: he felt great that he had just saved money!

“The future is frugality. Those that do not choose it now will be forced to later.”

Those are the words that I live by. And I can't wait for the day that people are bragging about the rate of return instead of what new sports car they bought. I can dream, can't I?