Are greedy rich people destroying the economy? Are the big banks, big businesses, and those people running them selfishly hording all the money for themselves? Many people believe that if the rich would only share more of the wealth—if we would only tax them more—we could get this country back on track. What do you think?

According to Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg, the six members of the Walton family (the heirs of the founder of Wal-Mart) have as much wealth as the bottom 30 percent of Americans.

Outrageous! Six people have almost as much wealth as the combined poorest 100 million Americans! Surely this economic inequality is not good for the nation. They need to be taxed more and the money given to the “poor” to create fairness, the argument goes.

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers. But first, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that my own net worth is greater than the bottom 25 percent of Americans—that is, more than the combined net assets of the poorest 76 million Americans. That might sound like a lot (note to wife: don’t get excited), but sadly it isn’t.

You might be shocked to learn that the typical homeless person standing on a street corner begging for money in Los Angeles is richer than the bottom 25 percent of Americans too. In fact, anyone who has a couple of dollars in his pocket and no debt has a greater net worth than one quarter of all Americans.

Twenty-five percent of Americans have less than a dollar to their name.

That is the real indictment of America! Not that there are so many rich people, but that there are not a whole lotmore“rich” people. Tens of millions of Americans have borrowed and spent money they do not have—and now they are paying the price. Debt is the biggest reason there are so many poor people. Time after time, studies have shown that it is not how much money you make, but how much money you spend that determines your sustainable standard of living. People with bigger salaries just tend to finance bigger cars, bigger homes and bigger vacations—with bigger credit cards—and end up in bigger bankruptcies.

No wonder the economy is failing. Many consumers have now reached their debt limits. With each new dollar of debt, the harder it is to get another credit card, the harder it is to sell your house without taking a loss, or to get a small business loan—and the harder it is to keep spending. Eventually you reach a tipping point and have to cut back drastically, or file bankruptcy. And because the American economy is now so dependent on consumer spending, it can’t help but contract along with its indebted consumers.

But what about these greedy rich people who made their money selling to indebted Americans? Shouldn’t they be made to help pay off America’s debt?

Unfortunately, America’s debt problems are far bigger than most people realize. Consider the herculean effort it would take just to pay off college debt owed by students in America. If the federal government were to tax Wal-Mart 100 percent and nationalize it, at current market rates, it could be sold for a little less than $200 billion. Stealing the world’s largest retailer wouldn’t even pay one fifth of the outstanding student debt in America.

And student debt is obviously just one form of debt that is crushing the economy. Each month, the federal government is forced to borrow around $125 billion from people in China, India and elsewhere. America could begin nationalizing and selling its biggest companies to pay the bills. Confiscating Apple Inc, the most valuable company in the world, would get America through to the end of February. Stealing Exxon Mobil, the world’s second-largest company, would buy us a little over another two months. The return on confiscation goes down dramatically from there. America’s next most valuable companies, ibm and Microsoft, together would cover our bills to July. Chevron Texaco would get us another month and a bit.

Mind you, this is taking the whole company—not just upping its taxes—and we still have only covered America’s projected deficit through September of next year. We haven’t even begun to talk about paying back the $14 trillion that America already owes. You could sell every single company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which also includes a ton of foreign companies, and still not pay off the federal government’s debt. Then there is all the state and municipal debt, mortgage debt, vehicle loan debt and credit card debt that still has to be paid. We also haven’t attempted to pay the $50 trillion or so worth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid promises.

Here is the point. America’s debt bubble may be about to burst.

Famed investor Jeremy Grantham warns there will be “seven lean years ahead.” The world “will not easily recover from the current level of debt,” he says.

Others are not so optimistic. “Our decade from hell will get worse in 2012,” says Market Watch’s Paul Farrell. “Fasten your seat belts.” Historian Niall Ferguson agrees, warning of a “double-dip” depression reminiscent of the 1930s.

Taxing the rich might pay the bills for a bit longer, but it is not a long-term solution to America’s debt problems. Those are beyond repair.

Obscene amounts of personal wealth is surely a symptom of something wrong with America. But taking money from the rich and simply handing it to others does nothing to help fix the underlying debt and spending problems of many of America’s “poor.” In many cases, probably the majority of cases, economic problems are simply the result of wrong choices. On a national, state and personal level, Americans are addicted to debt—and when you boil that down, much of it is really a character issue. To change America, to fix its debt problems, people need to change.