Re people taking on more debt, you may find this story interesting. Its about a trend of people trading in cars that they still owe a lot of money on and then rolling the negative equity into a new loan.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-29/negative-equity-rolled-new-car-purchases-reaches-record-4832
Hey! It’s not a car. It’s an investment! :-D