Posted on 09/30/2012 1:40:43 PM PDT by sopwith
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Everyone knows America has too much debt. What they don’t know is that things are getting better, not worse.
Little by little, our economy is reducing its debt burden, slowly repairing the damage caused by 10, 20 or 30 years of excess.
If you want to know why economic growth has been so tepid, here’s your answer. Four years after the storm hit, the economy is still deleveraging. And it’s very hard for any economy to grow when everyone is focused on increasing their savings.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
This sounds fishy need some input.
Four years ago a TRILLION dollar annual deficit was unthinkable. We’ve run four in a row with a max of about $1.4 TRILLION, all under OBastard’s watch.
How could we be deleveraging (ie, paying back debt) when we are accumulating debt at an all-time record pace? Smell like BS to me.
Maybe it’s the private sector deleveraging in anticipation of collapse. However, with the coming massive inflation, you want as much debt as you can service reliably — pay it off in fake Obama Bucks.
Rex Nutting claims that because 0bama signed a stimulus bill that was pasted in 2009, by the Congress that was elected in 2008, that the stimulus spending actually belong to Bush.
To the extent we are deleveraging, it results from debts being defaulted on. The savings rate went up in 2008 and 2009, but is back down to almost nothing.
He’s nuts. The national debt is unsustainable. Eventually this will lead to monetizing the debt and hyperinflation follows.
I call nonsense smoke and mirrors
Rex Nutting is just another way of saying Paul Krugman.
The chart shows a bit under 4 trillion in debt. I think he might be talking about private and corporate debt, and deliberately confusing the corporate with public. Yes, these sectors are deleveraging, but it's being picked up by the government.
Government debt--explicit debt--is 16 Trillion bucks. That doesn't count the actuarial debt of committed payouts for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security--which makes it more like $100 Trillion.
Isn't Rex Nutting the nutter who claims that Obama has spent less than previous presidents, and who promoted that by counting a bunch of Obama spending as Bush's to create an artificially high baseline?
As for no one on the private side advocating restraint, there used to be bankers who said no to a loan application, or credit card companies not giving out cards like candy. The restraint was that businesses could lose their own money.
These people need to fill their tanks with gas and then go grocery shopping.
Maybe then they will have some facts to think about.
Good read, thanks!
“In the U.S., household debt has now fallen to 84% of GDP from a peak of 98%. Nonfinancial corporate debt has fallen to 77% from a peak of 83%. Financial sector debt has plunged from 123% of GDP to 89%. Public debt has risen to 89% from 56%. “
My take on the article, FWIW:
“it was excessive private debt — not public debt — that caused the 2008 financial meltdown”
Yes, but what the author isn’t including is that much of that debt would have never have occurred if the banks hadn’t had the carrot and stick of knowing their losses would be covered by the Feds *and* being pressured to make housing loans to people who simply could not afford them. We’ve all seen the stories of people getting mortgages on three or four properties, knowing full well that in other times, they wouldn’t have gotten those loans because they simply didn’t have enough income or assets. So I see it as a little disingenuous to call it exclusively private debt when government played such a major role.
As for private debt growing more slowly than before. I would guess it’s because most people can’t afford to spend the way they did when the economy was decent. Both becuase their own incomes are down, and the fear of what might happen next. Businesses, likewise, are reluctant to take on new expansions for similar reasons.
hes talking private debt.
Is this from the same clown who said Obamugabe was a “conservative” when it came to spending?
My gtess us a lot of it has to do with bankruptcy and writing off of bad debts. Also a lot of folks can’t run up more because their credit is ruined.
Inflation...
Dollar Falls Most Since 2011 as Central Banks Bump Up Stimulus
Bankruptcies do not “repair” anything.
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