FRONT PAGE: "The 'Democratization of Credit' Is Over--Now It's Payback Time," by S. Mitra Kalita, Wall Street Journal, 10-11 October 2009.

The democratization of credit was a good thing, as virtually all democratizations are. But the reason why there are basically no true democracies in the world (instead, they are republics or representational democracies--if the term cannot be abandoned) is that they're too unstable--too easily given to manias and abuse that sends them searching for salvaging dictators.

In other words, democracies are too hard to discipline. So no great surprise that, with the relatively recent democratization of credit, abuses ensued, especially among the young who, quite frankly, have only lived through good years (our last true recession being in the early 1980s!).

So the correction (or crunch) creates a formative impression on a generation, and this is good.