Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Real Revolving Credit per Civilian Employed


Click to enlarge.

October 3, 2006
Godfather of '90s boom says he's bullish about the current market

Investors do seem edgy, and stocks could tumble with another spike in energy prices or worrisome economic news. Indeed, falling interest rates on long-term bonds suggest many bond investors think a recession is coming.

But Siegel says he's become more and more optimistic in recent weeks.

``The big fear that the economy is totally falling out of bed . . . I don't think that's going to materialize," he said.


Click to enlarge.



Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
St. Louis Fed: DJIA

19 comments:

  1. Interesting that by that measure, we went off track in 1998.

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  2. Who Struck John,

    The music was definitely winding down between 1998 and 2000. The exact pinpoint depends on which exponential trend failure charts we look at. And there are SO many to choose from! Sigh.

    May 22, 2000
    How the Soros Funds Lost Game Of Chicken Against Tech Stocks

    "Maybe I don't understand the market," a reflective Mr. Soros said at the April 28 news conference. "Maybe the music has stopped, but people are still dancing."

    I'm permabearish because I don't see how the music can possibly start back up in my lifetime. We created fake growth through massive debt and favorable demographics. I just don't see a repeat of that. In its place I see stagnation at best.

    Here is one thing I can say with absolute certainty. We will not create 40.3 million new jobs any time soon. I think there would be more permabears if more people understood the implications of that math.

    Just opinions of course.

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  3. It is also my opinion that we are throwing a lot of short-term cyclical solutions at long-term structural problems in the hopes that some of them stick.

    Good luck on that! Sigh.

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  4. We will not create 40.3 million new jobs any time soon.

    Would you settle for the creation of 46.5 million food stamp users?

    And then there's the millions recently added to the disability rolls.

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  5. Even better than food stampers and disability collectors, are a generation of students with mega student loans. Add in millions of long term unemployed who, once they graduate with a new college degree, will be both unemployed and much deeper in debt. Winning! Winning everywhere I look.

    :clown horn:

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  6. mab,

    Would you settle for the creation of 46.5 million food stamp users?

    Yes! Out of court!

    BA DUM tssshhh

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  7. Mr Slippery,

    Is that a clown horn in your pocket or are you just happy to see these perky economic charts?

    BA DUM tssshhh

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  8. Yes! Out of court!

    Would the out of court settlement cover the entire middle class action?

    Politicians are whores and they're "courting" disaster.

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  9. mab,

    Politicians are whores and they're "courting" disaster.

    BA DUM tssshhh

    Would the out of court settlement cover the entire middle class action?

    Nope. Can't afford the suer pipe!

    BA DUM tssshhh

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  10. The phrase "middle class" is so 1970. I think "middle classless" is more fitting these daze. *sigh*

    Did I mention we had a "nice" rebound in food stamp participation last month? I guess CNBC was too pre-occupied with Wall Street to mention it. Anyway, nothing says strong "middle classless" like record household food stamp participation.

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  11. mab,

    August 8, 2012
    Frustration over food stamp backlog

    Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- It's a sign of a still struggling economy. The state welfare division said more people are applying for food stamps and the system is overloaded.

    The economy is still struggling? It is "bound" to get better if it rubs the lotion on its skin.

    (No BA Dum tssshhh this time. Too much gallows humor. Sigh.)

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  12. Really, the short-term/structural dichotomy is all-important.

    From a policy perspective, I mean. If you are not working and you have run out of unemployment insurance, food stamps may be all-important.

    Every time I read Krugman again I get very anxious, because there's no acknowledgment of the structural issue. Anyway you look it, we've been borrowing over 1 trillion a year, and we've got an 8% unemployment rate to show for it.

    I really like your revolving credit per employed civilian chart. Yup. That's it exactly.

    If you sent everyone in the country $600 today, more than half would either save it or pay down a bill, and a lot of people would save $200 and put $400 toward a CC account. We have a real consumption negative multiplier going on.

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  13. Revolving credit was "recharged" 2004-2007 thanks to the housing bubble, too:

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=9mG

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  14. MaxedOutMama,

    Every time I read Krugman again I get very anxious, because there's no acknowledgment of the structural issue.

    I think Krugman suffers from ITSWPB (Ivory Tower Syndrome With Political Bias).

    If you sent everyone in the country $600 today, more than half would either save it or pay down a bill, and a lot of people would save $200 and put $400 toward a CC account.

    I'm picturing $200 saved, $200 paying down credit cards, and $200 invested in the future. Sigh.

    And there's no more convenient way to hoard gasoline than this 14-Gallon No-Spill Personal Gas Pump.

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  15. Troy,

    Revolving credit was "recharged" 2004-2007 thanks to the housing bubble...

    Recharged?

    BA DUM tssshhh ;)

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  16. Troy's right, though. People ran up their CCs and then refied with a cash-out to pay them down. Some of them did this several times.

    It's damned sad thing when you borrow money on your house to finance dinners at Red Lobster and movie tickets, but that's basically what happened.

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  17. MaxedOutMama,

    One wonders how many people are now borrowing in their credit cards to finance their unemployment.

    In both cases, there is a limit to how long that can work. Sigh.

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  18. I think "in their credit cards" was a Freudian Slip. I was thinking about a "house of cards" when I typed it.

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