It's not unique, but in the first world Australia has gone from being ranked one of the lowest in average household debt in 1990 to one of the very highest in 2021.
It's not fake money. It's likely not even "beyond means". The debts can likely be paid back. But it seems quite unlikely the level of spending can continue to grow.
It’s fake money in the sense that, assuming people aren’t in over their heads with loans they shouldn’t have been approved for, everyone is fully leveraged at some multiple of their monthly salary. In that regard, the present is fully leveraged taking a debt that the future will have to pay back, and it can only be pushed out indefinitely so long as the economy continues to grow. That’s regardless of GDP: it can be - and this is what people futilely speculate when it’ll hit - because the economy took a turn south (GDP looking only at the working-aged population drops) or, as mentioned above, even if the economy is doing spectacular on a micro level and GDP (again calculated only against working-age population) is up, but there simply aren’t enough cogs in the machine to keep it spinning at the same rate it was before.
It's not fake money. It's likely not even "beyond means". The debts can likely be paid back. But it seems quite unlikely the level of spending can continue to grow.