No, you have failed to prove its increasing either for real, or in any good category because of the negative trade imbalance which you continue to evade. How much of the economy is now actually sustained by too much debt, masking off the adverse fundamentals?
Thanks for the all the colorful charts. Like every economic Eeyore, you live in a very gloomy place.
Since quitting Prozac you must have missed the fact that the economy is rapidly expanding, inflation is low, unemployment is low, interest rates are low and wages are high. In spite of all this good news you're trying to sell the idea that everything is bad (or going to be that way soon). Is it really all just a mirage?
Thankfully, your protectionist/isolationist message has little appeal outside the usual third-party types. Must be pretty frustrating to know so much yet receive so little affirmation. Pat Buchanan feels your pain.
From Forbes:
The idea that Americans are overspenders and undersavers and addicted to debt is all myth. Household balance sheets have never been more robust. Last year Americans increased their financial assets--checking accounts, money market funds, mutual funds, IRAs, etc.--by an impressive $590 billion. Credit card debt in-creased a paltry 4%. Take our financial household assets (not counting houses and other tangible assets such as automobiles and jewelry) and subtract liabilities such as mortgages and credit card debt, and the American consumers' total financial net worth comes to an eye-popping $26.1 trillion. Consumers today have more than $4 trillion in savings accounts, more than $1 trillion in checking accounts and directly hold another $10 trillion in equities and mutual funds. Their life insurance and pension assets are in excess of $10 trillion. To put it in perspective, Americans' total debts, including mortgages, are dwarfed by their liquid assets.
Our per capita liquidity exceeds that of Japan, a nation noted for its high savings rate. As Bear Stearns' brilliant economist David Malpass notes, "The U.S. household sector is the world's biggest net creditor."
Why the bum rap for America's savings rate? Because of the crazy way our government computes that number. Washington leaves out of the household income number such items as realized capital gains and payments from pension plans and 401(k)s. As for consumption, long-lived assets such as autos and furniture are treated as if they were disposable pens. As Malpass puts it, "Consumption includes education. The absurd result: Spending less on education would raise the ‘personal savings rate,' even though it would reduce future U.S. growth."
This is why, in reality, consumers added $590 billion to their savings last year, while the government reported total consumer savings to be a paltry $100 billion.
Corporate America is also in excellent financial shape, with cash and liquid assets exceeding short-term debt by nearly$2 trillion.
Forbes
In 1959, 62% of Americans owned homes or about 110 million people. Today, 70% of Americans own homes or 206 million people. Americans have more home equity now than any at any other time in history. This has happened even though median home prices have risen dramatically. You're trying to tell us that all this occurred while wages and purchasing power were falling?
I don't know Paul. I read articles like the one from Forbes and then look around me and see all the wealth we've achieved in this country and I wonder where it is you live.
Thanks for posting the charts. They tell the entire story.