As the economy slowly rights itself, Americans continue to spend down their debt. During the first quarter of 2012, American households had 2.11 times as much in assets - bank deposits, stock holdings, and other assets - as they had in debt, including mortgages, credit card debt, car-payment obligations, etc, according to figures compiled by Deutsche Bank. That figure is up sharply from the figure for the fourth quarter of 2011, when it was 1.99.