After some further reading and research I came across this article from the New York times via a Google Search and blog article from Steady Blogging.
It is a great visual interactive graphic of the rise and history of US consumer debt levels. I suppose this is a reflection of what happened across the world as well, especially in countries with high debt levels. From the NYT link, click on “series index”, then click on “The American Way of Debt” and then click “Launch Interactive”.
It is debt and credit growth that spurred the massive asset price inflation of the past 2 decades, and it is the restriction of credit growth or deleveraging of these debt levels that will limit asset growth or even deflate asset prices world wide. Investors and traders need to have more than one tool in their tool box to be able to take advantage of this and protect their own capital.