Oil is not the problem, writes LA Times columist Tom Petruno, but debt. Both government and private debt has soared exponentially in the last two or three decades.

The federal deficit has jumped from $5.5 trillion to $8.2 trillion in five years. And we’re getting very close to having the baby boomers retire. This week the Treasury will sell $14 billion worth of 30-year notes, something it has not had to do in four years.

The private debt binge has been fuelled by low interest rates and that has fuelled the current account deficit because consumption was very very easy.

There are plenty of counter arguments: The federal deficit is only half the percentage of GDP it was in the Reagan years and our assets have all appreciated as has the debt. But this will only last so long as Asian governments and bankers fund the current system and the U.S. economy doesn’t struggle under the debt load.

Only time will tell. We seem to have survived the 1980s deficits and lived to tell the tale. But then there was still time to deal with entitlements and the baby boomers’ retirement. Now, entitlements are the only place left to cut the budget and the boomers are heading for the beach. And almost no one cares about the debt.