The epidemic of American indebtedness runs from home to government to global marketplace. To examine it, let's start at home.

Americans used to save — but no longer. Back in the 1950s, a generation of Americans who had survived the Depression and Second World War saved roughly 8 percent of their income. The savings rate rose and fell slightly over the decades — it went as high as 11 percent and as low as 7 percent during the "greed is good" 1980s — but now those days are only a memory.

In the charge-everything start of the new millennium, savings have plummeted: to just 1.3 percent last year, nearly to zero in the past few months and even to negative numbers in the latest estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The lack of savings is mirrored by a rise in debt. In 2000, household debt broke 18 percent of disposable income for the first time in 20 years, meaning debt eats almost $1 in every $5 American families have to spend after they get past the bills that keep them fed and housed. (That figure hasn't dropped. Credit card debt alone averages $7,200 per household.)

Many people take comfort in the rising value of their homes, and it's spurred record homebuilding and buying, with new construction making places like Las Vegas the fastest-growing in the nation. But a home translates into wealth only when you sell it — and there's a vigorous debate over whether the housing boom is becoming a bubble that will burst.

"It seems like, with the younger generation, that they want to have now what it took us years to get," says Jo Canelon, a 46-year-old social worker in Statenville, Ga.

"I see people younger than me with comparable jobs that drive new vehicles and have a boat and mortgage and things," says Canelon, who responded to the AP/Ipsos poll. "And I just wonder about their debt."

Canelon sees echoes in the rise of obesity: a pervasive I-want-it-now attitude no matter what the consequences. To her, debt's a symptom of disease, and one that's spreading.

Government spending

If she's right, the government is sick, too.

Leaders are elected by the people they serve, of course, and the American people seem to want the best of both worlds — tax cuts and government services — while they hope the dollars sort themselves out. They worry about the nation's problems but not enough to agree on a course of action to fix them.

The AP/Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults taken July 5-7 found that a sweeping majority — 70 percent — worried about the size of the federal deficit either "some" or "a lot."