Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Credit Growth, GDP Growth, and Wages


Click to enlarge.

1. Start with the dollar amount of the annual growth in the total credit market debt owed.
2. Subtract the dollar amount of the annual growth in GDP.
3. Divide by the dollar amount of wages and salaries.

This chart therefore shows how much credit has grown in excess of the amount the GDP has grown as a percentage of wages.

I would argue that the illusion of prosperity generated serious growth from 1959 to 2007. If that's true, then what is generating serious growth right now?



Based on the 20-year TIPS yield, not much.

February 2, 2011
More Dangerous Advice from Jeremy Siegel

These healthy rates were not a surprise, since economic theory predicted that real yields should approximate real gross domestic product growth, which averaged between 3 per cent and 4 per cent at that time.

Jeremy Siegel thought TIPS were in a bubble because he thought real GDP growth would return to historical levels. In sharp contrast, it is and was my opinion that real GDP growth will never sustainably return to historical levels.


Click to enlarge.

Ouch. Let's zoom in for a closer look.


Click to enlarge.

We are below the long-term median during an economic expansion. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how we'll be doing during the next recession. Not good!

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
St. Louis Fed: 20-Year Treasury Inflation-Indexed Security
St. Louis Fed: Real GDP

18 comments:

  1. Of course we can return to historic growth rates. We'll have to default first, and then forget that defaults can happen, but knowing credit markets that will only take about 15 years.

    Because "it's different this time."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who Struck John,

    Of course we can return to historic growth rates. We'll have to default first, and then forget that defaults can happen, but knowing credit markets that will only take about 15 years.

    As a holder of long-term TIPS, you have a way of making me laugh and making me cry all at the same time!

    Can I make a request?

    I'd prefer the default to be modest inflation and/or an event that happens after I'm dead and buried.

    Oh crap. I forgot a disclaimer.

    Now I'm picturing Homeland Security thinking up new ways to reduce my lifespan in order to fulfill my request.

    Patriot Blogger Act here we come! D'oh!

    For economic sarcasm crimes committed in 2012, we hereby sentence you to death and taxes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wait, if we extrapolate that blue line on Real GDP growth back to 1971, what is the GDP growth percent? I keed, I keed.

    This is another demonstration of unrestrained credit growth. Here is a crazy idea, what if we restricted credit growth based on some scarce, shiny metal? Nah, no one would ever build a money system like that. Sarcasm!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mr Slippery,

    Wait, if we extrapolate that blue line on Real GDP growth back to 1971, what is the GDP growth percent?

    Touché! ;)

    Here is a crazy idea, what if we restricted credit growth based on some scarce, shiny metal? Nah, no one would ever build a money system like that.

    Let's tie it to something really scarce. How many metric tons of honest politicians does the world have left?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Let's tie it to something really scarce. How many metric tons of honest politicians does the world have left?

    At the national level? Less than one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How many metric tons of honest politicians does the world have left?

    I don't know if there are any honest ones left. I think politicians everywhere are all filled with tungsten.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Who Struck John,

    At the national level? Less than one.

    That's worth a musical tribute! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mr Slippery,

    I don't know if there are any honest ones left. I think politicians everywhere are all filled with tungsten.

    Well, once they're done hollowing this country out, we're next!

    Hurray for tungsten! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Is data only available back to 1959 for that first graph ?

    I'd be curious to see what it looks like thru the 40's and 50's.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Job growth, 1965-1985 vs. 1992-2012

    This is probably the favorite graph I've made.

    History's rhyming, but in an ugly way.

    The flat parts of the blue curve was the Fed slamming the brakes on the economy (along with exogenous oil shocks).

    The red problem is just an economy running out of gas. We pushed

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDODNS

    2001-01-01 18409.28
    2008-01-01 33029.57

    15 trillion of debt into the economy over 7 years to get that piddly

    2001-01-01 132466
    2007-01-01 137118

    5 million growth in PAYEMS.

    That was $3M of new debt per new job.

    man. NOBODY gets this still. "Financial crisis was exogenous." Actually Soros' recent essay said the debt was an "endogenous" part of the problem:

    "Among other things, I developed a model of a boom-bust process or bubble which is endogenous to financial markets, not the result of external shocks. According to my theory, financial bubbles are not a purely psychological phenomenon. They have two components: a trend that prevails in reality and a misinterpretation of that trend. A bubble can develop when the feedback is initially positive in the sense that both the trend and its biased interpretation are mutually reinforced. Eventually the gap between the trend and its biased interpretation grows so wide that it becomes unsustainable."

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oops, PAYEMS after 7 years was:


    2008-01-01 138023


    was 1M, so $250,000 per jobbie.

    ReplyDelete
  12. $2.5M!

    goodnight gracie!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous,

    Is data only available back to 1959 for that first graph ?

    I'd be curious to see what it looks like thru the 40's and 50's.


    Wage and salary data started in 1959. I can take you back to 1949 by using GDP instead of wages.

    Here you go. It's not quite the same chart, but it is pretty close.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Troy,

    NOBODY gets this still.

    Don't despair. There's got to be at least 100 of us out of 6.8 billion, lol. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Mark,

    How many metric tons of economists get it?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Who Struck John,

    How many metric tons of economists get it?

    Megatons? No, wait. I was thinking of economic fallout and exponential decay. Nevermind.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "Wage and salary data started in 1959. I can take you back to 1949 by using GDP instead of wages."

    Excellent , many thanks !

    The thing I see is that we still had a chance in the 70's to maintain the relatively flat pattern at 4-5%. Instead , we "fixed the problem" by increasingly moving away from wage-led growth to debt-led growth.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous,

    Instead , we "fixed the problem" by increasingly moving away from wage-led growth to debt-led growth.

    Indeed! And then, nearly 30 years later, I started a blog about it, lol. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete