The Next Debt Crunch

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Cardiff Garcia

Published January 2, 2018 at 4:02 PM EST

The U.S. economy is doing great — unemployment is low, businesses are investing more. What could possibly go wrong?

It's like watching the first 20 minutes of a horror movie. Everything seems great. The kids are out swimming in the lake. It's a beautiful summer. But you know something bad is going to happen sooner or later. It always does.

On today's show, we talk about one way things might go wrong: We look at parts of the economy where borrowing is getting frighteningly easy — and where more and more people are struggling to repay their debts.

Happy New Year.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia