New government figures show that national savings went into negative territory for the first time since the Great Depression, reports the Associated Press. Then, unemployment and business failures led people to dip into their savings just to survive.

Now other things are in play. The biggest factor in savings going backwards were big ticket items that consumers (that’s us folks) continue to buy because of the big run-up in house prices. New car sales, particularly on the luxury side, boomed last year in Las Vegas and our houses are continuing to move up even as much of the rest of the country sees the housing market cooling.

And tomorrow’s Fed meeting will probably push interest rates up one more time before the new chairman Ben Bernanke takes the helm.

And the experts continue to be nervous that the big spending boom is rolling on as the retirement tidal wave of the baby boomers is about to crash ashore. ”Americans seem to have the feeling that it is wimpish to save,” David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York, tells the news service. ”The idea is to put away money for old age and we are just not doing that.”

That’s undoubtedly true in the long term. But consumer behavior often lags the trends the exerts see. If the big spenders are comfortable enough to spend their new-found wealth they’ll find soon enough that consumers are retreating and paying down all that debt. No matter how much your house is worth, you still need cash to pay off the VISA or make that car payment.