Kevin Drum misses the message

 

Note the debt to equity rises during downturns. This chart does not include the current down turn and that number will be closer to 60%.

Second, equity is driven up as accounts avoid the Fed tax.  Here is a better chart:

This is the amount of debt relative to cash flow.  Velocity has dropped, there are fewer transactions supporting debt charges.

Note, this chart does no include the down turn, yet. It is built up to 2020 Q1 before the data was stable.

We know who educated Drum on economics, and we have to check his work, always, as he is running with the 'This time is different' fraud.  He likely has no idea he was conned.

And another shout to Mish, monetary velocity does indeed matter, on its own.

The Wall Street article Kevin drew from was written by someone who was unable to do a competent search on the topic.  Had they done so, they would have discovered debt to cash is the proper ratio.  In pure basic theory it is loans to deposits.  The first chart I saw was loans to surplus, but the interactive graph was a pain.  Loans to cash flow is a good enough proxy for the short term.