There can be little doubt that British attitudes to personal debt have changed over the last three decades. But that is perhaps unsurprising given that attitudes to just about everything else from politics to popular music have also changed during that same period.

But debt has really been grabbing the headlines this year. A period of unprecedented economic growth that stretches back to the mid-1990s has delivered stability, a buoyant property market and low interest rates making money cheaper than ever.

Borrowing money on credit cards, larger home loans or short-term personal loans has rarely been easier. And not just because of the favourable interest rate. The internet has blown competition in the financial services market wide open meaning that there is now more choice and an outstanding range of special introductory offers.

Zero per cent credit cards, for example, were a huge success in convincing people to take on new pieces of plastic. As a loss leader though they rather backfired with canny consumers, branded rate tarts by the industry, moving their debts from one introductory offer to the next.

This trend did at least suggest that the British public were not just lambs to the slaughter when it came to the latest finance fad, but were instead making the market work for them. Nonetheless, the very fact that zero per cent deals were available at all could be seen as evidence that offers too good to resist were encouraging people into taking on more debt.

Thirty years ago the thought of owing the equivalent of £6,000 would have been unthinkable for most people, now most new graduates would welcome such a manageable millstone around their necks.

A mortgage was probably the biggest commitment anyone ever made and would only have been taken on with a spouse or long-term partner. Now mortgages can be arranged between groups of friends on the internet.

It would appear that our perceptions of debt and its consequences have changed. Borrowing money from a bank that you fail to repay is not going to result in you having your legs broken. In fact, the reason lenders are falling over themselves to service our appetite for credit is because people who owe money are assets ? especially if those people happen to be university students about to enter the world of work.

But while debt is easier to come by and while repayments may be more flexible, the consequences are there for everyone to see. Newspapers and television programmes are constantly featuring poor souls who ran up debts so large that they lost their house and often their families. No wonder you can't escape adverts for debt consolidation companies. On the radio, on television ? even the subject of their own reality shows ? debt consolidation experts are everywhere.

And at the same time, the more business-savvy among us are also having problems with debt. Whether a consequence of a change in attitude or evidence that the economic boom is finally coming to an end, bankruptcies in the second quarter of this year hit their highest level since 1960.