7 Answers

Reckless spending.

BORROWING!

In a nutshell - spending money you haven't got.

The CAUSE is our so-called POLITICIANS!!!

Buying with a promise to pay and then only pay interest to extend the debt to eternity with no intent of ever paying the debt off for fear that your debt holder may not be willing to accept your trade any more. Paying interest only is how our government keeps other countries involved in our business and US in their business. We pay interest on debts like links in a chain of mutual interest. If a country goes for supporting and exporting terrorism, we don’t pay the interest that is due or use the debt to leverage changes within that government. This diplomacy via capitalism has apparently been successful, but how it is maintained has the same problem potential as your debt history. But when we were paying off our housing debt, we didn’t ask our lean holder to mow the lawn as part of the deal. Our government asks our debtors to move in to the lower 48 to mow the lawn etc.  Curious, isn’t it.    

Here you go:

http://www.ehow.com/about_4615381_what-causes-debt.html

The stooges in Washington DC!!