Saturday, March 3, 2012

Our Astronomical Debt


Click to enlarge.

What? No more planets to explore?

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Total Credit Market Debt Owed
Penny (United States coin)
The Planets

10 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

For what it is worth, I turned permabear about the time we passed Pluto.

This is not a joke by the way. $2 in stacked pennies gets you a foot. We've got more than enough total credit market debt owed to reach Pluto, assuming we'd have the time and resources to mint the coins. Sigh.

fried said...

Hi Mark,
re debt, have you noticed the push to get folks into dividend paying equities. Marketwatch has been headlining the TIPS vs dividends theme for a few weeks now. I like to pull up the insider trading stats for the equities they rec for the divy play...insiders seem to be selling.
Strange huh?
My current investment suggestion is a kitchen garden, for sure fire returns.

Stagflationary Mark said...

fried,

I have noticed the dividend stock pumping. It is relentless.

Apparently nothing bad ever happens to companies that pay hefty dividends, well, other than major banks during the last recession of course!

What could possibly go wrong if everyone loads up on dividend stocks now that the S&P 500 has doubled?

It is an election year. That's bound to offer some safety. Election years 2000 and 2008 being the obvious exceptions, lol. Sigh.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Then there's election year 2004, which coincidentally is the year I turned into a permabear.

Good times, good times.

dearieme said...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Stagflationary Mark said...

dearieme,

I'm sure Egyptian pharoahs would have grasped it in a jiff,
Then every single pyramid would bear this hieroglyph;

Mr Slippery said...

The good news is that if we stack zinc pennies instead of copper, our real cost drops by 80%. Like magic!!

You don't stack real copper pennies past Pluto any more. Zimbabwe tried it and look how that turned out.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Mr Slippery,

Since a dime now buys exactly what a penny did in 1947, I say we just get rid of the penny and nickels altogether.

As an added bonus, dimes are thinner!

The purists would want to stack paper dollars though. But hey, that wouldn't even get us to earth on the chart. Where's the fun in that? ;)

Troy said...

Here's a comment I left at DeLong's.

I don't understand neoliberals.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

We will do neither of course. Japan, 1990-onwards showed the way.

That's pretty much how I see it. Sigh.