Saturday's Report on Business called itself The Debt Issue, and highlighted the following number in red type:

$2,587,527,300,000

That would be total U.S. consumer debt ... and counting.

Here are som other factoids the Globe dug up:

$1.62 trillion - In "non-revolving" loans for cars and houses. The figuure was $922 billion in 1999.

$970 billion - In "revolving loans" such as credit card debt. The figure was $611 billion in 1999.

70 per cent - Is the amount that U.S. consumer debt has increased this decade.

Some excerpts from the commentary and reportage:

Brian Milner: When Banking 101 doesn't sink in, this is the result

You would think that of all the market pros fervently hoping for a semblance of stability to be restored to the financial system, no one would be cheering harder for the Paulson-Bernanke mortgage mop-up than an investor holding nothing but U.S. financial stocks.

But in the case of money manager David Ellison, you would be wrong.

Debt is the disease, the president of the FBR mutual fund group was saying the other day from his Boston office. And you don't cure it by freeing up banks to issue more of the stuff to consumers who can't afford what they already owe.

The administration's attempted fix for the financial system would include clearing banks' books of unmarketable mortgage-related assets, enabling them to get back to the business of creating new ones and, in theory, rejuvenating the moribund housing market.

The only trouble is that it won't work.

“Banks have lent in abundance. That's not the problem,” Mr. Ellison said. “The problem is that the people they gave the money to can't pay it back. Are the problems brought on by easy money solved by easier money?”

David Ebner: All borrowed out

The fabled American consumer, driver of two-thirds of U.S. economic activity and de facto engine of the world's economy, is vanishing from the aisles of the nation's stores. Already reeling from the implosion of the country's housing market and the jobs shed by the slowing economy, the voracious U.S. consumer is now being choked by evaporating credit. The meltdown on Wall Street, which also has its roots in the housing debacle, is creating a lending lockdown between banks that is now turning off the spigot of cash to businesses and consumers.

Businesses are struggling to get credit, with short-term markets seized up as interest rates soars and lenders hoard cash. The liquidity crisis took down Washington Mutual Inc. on Thursday night as its latest kill, the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. Consumers are feeling the pinch as lenders tighten credit card limits and home equity lines of credit, and toughen mortgages and student loan requirements.

Even if the cash were available, it's not clear consumers are in the mood to spend. Once so hungry to borrow and spend, an ever-more fearful consumer now looks poised to retreat further from the malls and bars, pinching pennies. The growth in credit has slowed substantially, with car and home loans already all but stagnant, and is teetering at the edge of a decline, which would be a first since 1992.

"There's no doubt the consumer has downshifted, and part of the reason is they're borrowing at a slower rate - but make no mistake, they're still borrowing," said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management.

The credit crisis has created a greater change, one sharply away from the free and flagrant-spending days of recent years. "That one is attitudinal," Mr. Paulsen said of the change. "Among consumers. Among lenders. Among everyone. It's a cultural thing that will take, at a minimum, a couple years to rebuild - if not longer."

The apparently waning appetite of American consumers is among the greatest risks facing the U.S. economy - with major potential reverberations in Canada and around the world. With so many exports going south, from auto parts to oil to lumber for houses, a U.S. recession means hard times if not worse for Canada.

Cash register-shy consumers could undermine the massive $700-billion (U.S.) bailout that is being negotiated in the nation's capital to quarantine bad bank debt and prod banks back into the lending business.

The government bailout is all about rebuilding shattered confidence, to slowly soak up the disastrous lending decisions of this decade that have unfolded in spectacular ways and are on the verge of ramming the world's most powerful economy in to the ground. It's about believing the money can keep moving.