I still don't understand this obsession everyone else has with finding reasons to criticize Americans. Especially when it's frequently based on ignorance.
The other reply to your comment is pretty instructive. There appears to be a positive correlation between how wealthy a country is and how high the household debt load is.
A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Pair that with American Optimism and trusting the Fed, debt just makes sense. It's basically temporal arbitrage.