Pesky Questions

I am breaking from my usual format tonight (like I have one) to simply ask some questions that I think are worth asking. Things that may have no answer but are I think worth chewing on. You decide. Feel free to posit any answers in comments. So here we go:

1. Private debt reached all time highs in the past couple of years no matter how you measure it, but it has been coming down. I think it will take through 2012 at least to get back to historic norms but there are a host of variables impacting that time frame that are difficult to predict. Now there are various ways to reduce debt with the leading two being paying it down and default. Given unemployment, the markets being down drastically, home prices being down and the like, did the reduction in private debt to date in the U.S. for the past couple of years come mostly from people being frugal and paying it off or people defaulting? I have not seen stats on this so if you have I would appreciate seeing them.
2. Related to the last point, you have people saving more (though still not enough), some debt being paid off, unemployment high and everything else I said above, so where is consumer spending, which is around 70% of GDP, going to come from for the next year or two?
3. I just got a rescue dog recently and he takes a leak in the house every time I come home from work (really), so what can I do to stop this?
4. If the level of economic activity in this country for the past 10 years or more was built largely on easy credit and the resulting increased debt instead of people actually being able to afford what they could buy at the time they buy it, and if people are making less today collectively than they used to make due to unemployment, debt reduction and the like, where is the economic recovery coming from other than people foolishly returning to debt-laden ways if they are allowed to do so (as in a new bubble)?
5. Why do I always have to move toys to pull into my garage space at home?
6. If we do recover but in fact live within our means, instead of off debt, how much will that reduce GDP versus where it was in its debt-fueled days?
7. How does infusing banks with money (in multiple ways) so they can lend lead to a recovery when people have no way to pay the debt they already have and are becoming more frugal?
8. On a related note, what sense does it make to try to spur a heavily debt-laden country into spending again?
9. If Republicans in large part caused this mess and Democrats apparently failed miserably in fixing it, who the hell do you vote for?
10. We have massive excessive factory capacity in this country, so why would you give tax benefits to companies to spend more on factories and equipment?
11. Houses are selling in many markets for less than it would cost to build them and excess capacity along with shadow inventory will keep this so for a long time, so exactly how do we help builders by giving folks credits to buy houses they would buy anyway?
12. The stock market is up the past couple of days on very low volume on news that was mediocre at best, can it, will it, continue?
13. Do you double down on 7s when the dealer has 16 showing?
14. Everyone now, including those doing the tests, acknowledge that the EU bank tests really did not test everything they needed to test and major capital infusions are likely needed there (even if there is no sovereign defaults). And the spreads there for the PIIGS are at, above or near record highs reached in May, so what does the bond market there know that the stock markets seem to be ignoring?
15. Why is the toilet paper roll always empty when I go to take a dump?

Disclosures: None.