Friday, October 31, 2014

Halloween Fright Fest: Real Disposable Personal Income per Capita (Musical Tribute)


Click to enlarge.

As we head into the Christmas season, what's the worst that could happen?



See Also:
Halloween Fright Fest: Long-Term Housing (Musical Tribute)
Nonstore Retail Sales Analysis: The Das Boot Edition

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

4 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

Crazy Rhetorical Theory

1. If real disposable income per capita levels off and...

2. Investors keep plowing disposable income into stocks then...

3. Where is the additional Christmas spending money going to come from?

Stagflationary Mark said...

As a side note, I do not expect the parabolic trend in this chart to hold. It's got a cherry picked starting point and there aren't that many data points. I consider it to be a miracle that it matches the data as well as it does. Don't read too much into the high correlation.

I actually think the odds favor a break back to the upside.

That said, it is Halloween, I am a permabear, and I predicted nearly 2 1/2 years ago that we'd have a recession by October of 2014. If the parabolic trend breaks to the downside, here we go again! It is not a negligible risk.

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see real disposable personal income for the lower 99 or 90%. My guess is it would be decreasing.
Fred

Stagflationary Mark said...

Fred,

Yes, it would be interesting, and that would be my guess as well. Sigh.