brianmersenne

The total level of household debt has grown, but

  - the ratio of debt to personal income, and

  - the ratio of debt to GDP

has decreased steadily and significantly since the financial crisis. These ratios are now the lowest since 2002.

Households owe more, but they are also making more money and creating more value.

The sweetener isn't part of the Coca-Cola formula (or more specifically, isn't part of the Coca-Cola concentrate). Coca-Cola provides unsweetened concentrate to independent bottlers, and the bottlers add high fructose corn syrup, sugar, or both during the bottling process. Some US Coca-Cola bottlers still only use sugar for sweetener.