Household debt to GDP tells you the state of the society. Household debt to income tells you households' ability to repay. If Debt/GDP is fine but Debt/Income is not, you're looking at (a) default (lenders eat dust), (b) inflation (savers eat dust) or (c) public assistance (non-borrowing taxpayers eat dust). That's a political question. If Debt/GDP isn't fine, option (c) flies off the table.
That sounds reasonable, but aren't all of those mitigations for after the shit hits the fan? None of options will prevent a crash unless you can actually exercise them pre-crash.
> aren't all of those mitigations for after the shit hits the fan?
Not necessarily. Raising minimum wages or cutting certain taxes are examples of pre-emptive steps political systems can take to increase households' incomes. Making debt harder or easier to discharge, or raising or lowering policy rates, can be similarly prophylactic.
