In his article, which I recommend that you all read, The Fading of the Mirage Economy, he nails what is going on in the first three paragraphs:

Suddenly, it seems, we’re getting hit from all directions.

Energy and food prices are soaring. The housing market continues to collapse. Government revenue is falling, and taxes are rising. Airlines are jacking up fares and fees while reducing service. Banks are pulling credit lines. Auto companies are cutting production once again. Even investment bankers are losing their jobs.

The tendency is to see these as separate developments, each with its own causes and dynamic. Fundamentally, however, they are all part of the same story — the story of the global economy purging itself of large and unsustainable imbalances that for a time allowed many Americans to think they were richer than they really were.

I disagree on one point. I do not think that this was some sort of random confluence of events.

I think that this has been mainstream economic policy for the past 28 years. It is the gradual removal of wealth from the bottom 90+% and its transfer to those at the top, with free, easy, and increasingly unregulated credit and credit markets to create the temporary illusion of a high standard of living.

The goal was to create debt peonage, to make our society less like the industrialized world, and more like Mexico.