Since then and until his death, he did legal work for the Budget and Credit Counseling Service in Manhattan, representing indebted consumers.

"With limited job growth and falling real wages, heavily indebted consumers will have difficulty maintaining a healthy pace of consumption growth," Mr. Baker said.

Financial counselors advise indebted consumers to avoid buying goods on credit and even to cut up their credit cards.

A Senate subcommittee called yesterday for speedier investigations into credit counseling agencies, saying that some may be exploiting their tax-exempt status to squeeze hefty profits from indebted consumers.

Much has been written about the deeply indebted consumer, of course, and even more about the bubble in real estate.

Or will it darken even further as worried, heavily indebted consumers pull back?

You have a heavily indebted consumer facing significantly higher heating- and-cooling energy costs.

Amar, Ariely, Ayal, Cryder, and Rick (2011) observed this tendency in surveys of indebted consumers and in incentive-compatible experiments.

In the short term, an FHM company helps an indebted consumer leave debt by using an established debt relief method.

By doing so, it might run the risk of financial disruptions among institutional investors and heavily indebted consumers.