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The One Chart You Need To Predict The Future
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
We are witnessing a profound secular sea-change: the failure of expanding debt and leverage to lift the real economy of wages and household income.
When push comes to shove, you only need one chart to predict the future: debt and wages ( credit and compensation). This chart displays debt and wages as a ratio: debt/wages. What it reveals is the endgame of financialization: creating more debt no longer pushes wages higher.
I have broken the past five decades into easily recognizable economic periods. During the organic growth of the 1960s that many view as the ideal--what I term the pre-financialized economy, the line is almost flat, as debt and wages expanded in a balanced fashion.
The 1970s, a rocky period of stagflation, higher energy costs and painful adjustments to the economy, is remarkably stable when boiled down to the debt/wage ratio.
Financialization--the securitization of previously stable assets, the expansion of leverage and speculative financial instruments--began in the early 1980s. We see the effect of rapidly expanding debt on the economy: the line leaps higher and only flattens out in the tech-boom 1990s.
Why did the ratio flatten out? This was a period of organic expansion similar to the 1960s: wages expanded as did the number of jobs. Debt and wages once again expanded in a balanced fashion.
After the tech bubble burst, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates and pushed financialization to the max. The debt/wage ratio line soared on the rocket fuel of debt, leverage and speculation.
But something changed around 2009. Expanding debt and leverage no longer boosted wages. For the first time in 30 years, juicing debt and leverage did not push wages higher--rather, wages declined or stagnated, despite trillions of dollars of Fed stimulus, near-zero interest rates and all the other tricks of financialization.
The returns on additional debt and leverage have diminished to near-zero. This is the endgame of financialization: expanding debt and leverage no longer move the needle on wages and household income. Rather, adding more debt is weighing on wages.
After 30 years of success, the endgame is finally here. We are witnessing a profound secular sea-change: the failure of expanding debt and leverage to lift the real economy of wages and household income.
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Well, let's see.
Ever since 2008, when a Communist took over the Presidency, things have gone straight downhill, have they not?
Through Executive Order and a Communist Democrat Congress (for a time), BHO has initiated as many
anti-Constitutional programs and the take over of industries as he possibly has dared.
Not to mention that ALL of the net new JOBS since 2008 have gone to illegal and legal immigrants.
No net new jobs to American Citizens since BHO took office.
Simply put, Obama, Valerie Jarrett, et al have waged war on Americans, and especially, the Middle Class.
All of the FED money has gone to Wall Street and billionaires and the banksters.
In one sentence, I tried to convey this message, but I suppose most are too ignorant to see the truth.
Progressive Republican Presidents sure haven't helped this, either. But it all started in 1913 with the creation of The FED,
and the ultimate demise of our nation was written in Gold when Nixon took us off any kind of Gold or Silver standard.
And it doesn't help when the media and our Federal Government LIE TO US ON A DAILY BASIS.
So, go ahead, down vote me. Because I'm one True American Patriot who will be happy when we can
once again fight for our Liberty, Freedom, and our Constitution.
2008? WTF? you trying to cover up george and dead eye dicks attack on newyork? are you trying to deny the pnac? the "patriot" act? Free trade? the Clintons oklahoma city? Waco? Ruby Ridge? "we know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction b.c we sold them to them". "mission accomplished". Trickle down theory. you smell like a blinded replicunt.
Obviously, sir, you didn't finish reading my post, now did you?
I clearly called out Bush as a Progressive Republican, didn't I?
Of course, you'll never be happy with any President, and frankly,
neither will I, unless I become President (note my Surveyor4Pres moniker).
Note that I am a Constitutional Conservative, and NOT a Libertarian.
Still, as a future potential Presidential candidate, here's my platform:
1) Support and push for Maximum Liberty and Freedom for every American Citizen, per the Bill of Rights and our Constitution.
2) Abolish most Federal agencies, including the IRS, Dept of Ed, NSA, and many more.
3) No Federal Income Tax (0%) for ALL AMERICANS.
4) Just a 3% Capital Gains tax of all businesses, with no loopholes, to fund the Federal Government.
Shall I go on?
Go ahead and down-vote me, if you're a Communist, or even a wannabe socialist.
R U for real? If you actually try to do something decent for the goy, your head will be exploded across Texas.
Fascism usually disguises itself until the last possible moment. Like many your confusing communism with fascism. We are an openly full blown fascist state and I use O-Care as my basis for argument.
Fascism is the merger of corporate and government. O-Care is a classic example of the insurance industry and government collaboration. There are many others but this one cannot be argued.
In the u.s fascism is called "Private, Public Partnership" and Neo Nazis are called Neo Cons. Otherwise I agree with your general line of thought. I too am not a Libertarian,,, TRUE Libertarians are the first globalists, as they do not agree with nation borders and openly state corporations/businesses should be able to go anywhere to find the cheapest labor and vice verse.
As far as the constitution is concerned,,, the experiment in self government was an abject failure in that We the People failed the constitution in favor of our selfish motives.
You left out one small item. Amerika is a fascist POLICE state.
You don't think H.W. Bush transferred a bunch of money over to Corporate Welfare? hey Social Welfare is big, but it is all a transfer that ends up paid to corporations. Medicare/Medicaid $1 Trillion a year. DoD Budgets keep soaring even when there is an end to war with hidden Black Budget Programs. Obama Care is just another in a long line of Intelligence Operations against the US Taxpayers.
$T Debt Added to Federal Debt
J. Carter, ,$0.37 T (4 yrs)
R. Reagan, $1.69 T
G. H Bush, $1.4 T (4 yrs)
W. Clinton, $1.627 T
G. W. Bush, $4.357 T
B. Obama, $6.365 T (4 yrs)
B. Obama, $8 T (6 yrs est.)
This is disgusting.
Good points. Consider who held the purse strings when those guys were president (house and speaker thereof). But the sitting president would sign the spending bill no matter what was in it, as long as they got what they wanted. I remember Ross Perot's idea of line item veto. Maybe not his idea, but one he pushed. That would have helped tremendously, and made congress do its job the right way. All water, well actually, money under the bridge now. But I didn't hear Barry bring it up, either. And probably not the next Republicrat, either.
Wait, I thought Obama was an Islamo-fascist. Shit, its so hard to keep track of the evildoers labels.
No kidding about labels, how about we just call them all bad guy evil doers?
The ideology of Islam and communism have a lot in common as it relates to the control of the population via government force. Islam is a political ideology disguised as a religion.
Islam says that those that don't convert, such as Christians, will have to pay a TAX to punish them financially because they don't believe they way you believe. Sounds very similar to the Democrat party.
So on what could be argued is the most Pro-Capitalism and Free Market web site on the internet,
if you bash Communism, you get DOWN-VOTED.
I suppose it is indicative of the current state of affairs, in America.
Communist principles, vis a vis the 10 pillars of the Communist Manifesto,
are the death-nails in the coffin of American Liberty.
The coffin has been nailed shut and buried years ago or maybe you haven't noticed?
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall --Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the Kings horses and all the Kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again"
Thank you grandma for teaching me this 65 yrs ago.
You are right. And right now they are screwing up "A penney saved is a penney earned". Boy, will they be sorry...
hate it when inflation starts to wane like that.
Looks just like the 25-54 labor force.
What happened in '09 is that the currency became debt saturated. There are not enough remaining consumer borrowers to loan to that have collateral. They served no purpose and were kicked to the curb. The fed dropped the interest rate to zero to keep corporations and the financial industry alive. The incremental debt at that point consisted of the government borrowing to buy bad assets from the financial sector, and companies borrowing to buy back stocks, and funding wars to finance the MIC. The consumer (middle class) was ballast thrown over the side to lighten the load at that point, and keep this hunk of crap in the air a little longer.
"The incremental debt at that point consisted of the government borrowing to buy bad assets from the financial sector, and companies borrowing to buy back stocks, and funding wars to finance the MIC"
++++++++++++++++++++++
Especially the part about buying worthless assetts from the banksters.
---------------
Remember the charts of when the worthless real estate mortgages were to kick in year by year? There were also charts of when the hell of HELOCS and Second Mortgages were to kick in. We all know that the Seconds and HELOCs are worthless when the firsts fail; so what happened to all of that crap? By now there should have been hundreds of billions of failed seconds and HELOCs on the books of Wells Fargo and Chase. Their non-performing were at 14%-20+% of their portfolio on the primaries just a few years ago. Every dime of the subordinated shit has failed by definition and there must have been a far higher percentage of subordinated paper that failed even if the borrowers almost made good on the primary payments. You all know how that works; why have we never heard of the massive losses in the secondary markets? The bailouts must be still going like crazy even after the supposed shut down of the QE bankster bailouts. The QE fgures never accounted for the amounts of funding needed to cover the losses in the subordinated loans.
I'll have to look up the charts that show the progression of the yearly fails and the estimates of what it would cost. They are likely still around on the sites that did their best to put a value on the failures of the mortgage markets.
I'd appreciate anyone posting links on the charts of the year-by-year default estimates.
This stinks big time.
This is a very good reason to audit the FED. We must know what we taxcows and all of us that are forced to use their notes as money are liable for.
If the FED did use their QE to buy up the filth of subordinated mortgage paper as they must have done, we must make a stink loud enough to force a legitimate audit of the value of the paper that the FED now owns. If you give it any thought, it is far more likely that the FED was buying up subordinated debt instruments far more than the first mortgages that would get attention from the borrower. If the first is not paid, the borrower loses the house right away. There were gobs of programs to "help" the borrower to make the first, but nothing much for seconds and HELOCs. That necessarily means that the default has to be far higher on the latter.
The leverage that the TBTF's are carrying, not to mention the 70+ leverage of the FED tells me that the whole system will collapse upon the first cursory examination.
Maybe I am full of crap too, and it all is good.
Totally ignores that fact that 1.5 billion people have joined the worldwide labor force in the last 25 years.
Control for this change, and the chart is nonsense.
Is this chart's purpose to add up all the dollars or working people? Or to look at relationships between wages and debt? People joining the labor force usually assume debt as well, or we'd have two distinct classes of workers. 1.5 billion with no debt, and everyone else.
You're missing the point. This chart comprehends the U.S. economy ONLY. Arguably the biggest driver of wages over the last 30 years has been foreign supply of labor, leaving this chart meaningless.
The South was right!
Again!
After the tech bubble burst, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates and pushed financialization to the max.
I was around to witness this Fed action. There was panic in the streets, I know people, ordinary working people whose advisers had pushed them to cash in on the NASDAQ frenzy. When this bubble went, it cleaned out many foolish greedy people.
The Fed was truely in panic, cheap money was the answer they said. And so it remains. Cheap money.
Everyone I talk to that goes into a bank, and mentions they are considering buying some gold, gets the same excited response: "Oh, why would you want to do that?". Well, because if you do, it's a total takeaway from the bank.
The only problem with this chart is that it charts basic fundamentals. We both know that fundamentals do not drive asset valuations. The Fed drives asset prices through their bag of tricks, which recent evidence has proven includes buying of futures whenever needed. Look at the recent times when the Fed spoke openly of a QE wind down, the markets paniced! Then after a few days of panic, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the markets screamed high on no news, on no fundamentals, on nothing. Except teh Fed both buying futures and at teh same time handing over billions at 0% to bankers so they could speculate too on that 0% spread versus stock price rises.
Yes, you have a point. But this disconnect between asset valuations and fundamentals is a fairly new game, and the rules don't seem to be working. It could be that very thing itself that pulls the plug, because one thing is for sure, no matter how much you try to keep something the same, it will change given time.
Very interesting chart, but is the conclusion (or description of the chart) backwards? Flat parts of the chart show wages growing (or shrinking) equally along with debt. Rising parts show debt (numerator) growing faster than wages (denominator). I.e. more debt does NOT lead to more wages. Downward part at the end is where wages are rising faster than debt, which is the opposite of the conclusion: creating more debt no longer pushes wages higher.
The takeaway from this is that debt volume drives velocity only to a saturation point and when velocity dies so do wage increases.
All the printed paper in the world means nothing without production and consumption to move that money around in a manner that creates real wealth on Main Street. Main Street is servicing debt rather than consumption. Lenders take the lion's share of wealth while the consumption economy stagnates along with wages which are further eroded by the inflation they so desperately try to create.
Maybe a vacation about now...
This is a damned phenominal chart, thanks. Yes, we're seeing it out our window! ZH readers see this, and I'm sure wonder: Should I just ignore all this stuff and go on with my day, hoping these idiots can manage to continue the Ponzi until I'm dead, or: Should I start cleaning my firearms now, because it's going to get ugly out there sooner than I hoped?
Always keep your weapons clean and your powder dry!
And condoms.
Don't forget the condoms. Be Prepared.
and reload so you can afford to practice. weapons are useless if you cant hit jackshit.
Did wages really lever up as the chart shows from 2000 to 2010? I must have missed that completely. I was a telecom worker in that decade and all I remember is my industry going through the worst depression in its history. I remember the industry shedding thousands of high paying jobs. I remember years of stagnant wages if you were lucky to keep your job. Which industries got the big wage increases? Construction maybe? Many of my colleages, that lost their jobs, took a big cut in salary to go nail houses together.
Sadly, still ongoing...
Charts missing the third credit boom to follow. BTFD
Is the DJIA down 245 on everybody's computer or just mine?
yes. Mr. Yellen is at the Che' Robspierre and will be done with her Steak Diane shortly to return the markets green by 3PM. Mr. Henry is in St. Tropez on Spring Break so we apologize for any worry. The computer programmed "markets" will continue their rise unabated until 3/11 when the roof is pre-plannedly caved.
So, it's next wednesday that we should buy DXD?
Shipping all the middle class jobs offshore might have something to do with those falling wages. Yes?
am not a JFK Administration 'fan' per se....but am not super negative either.
The preceding said, I think JFK economically did some unconventional things for a supposed 'progressive' Dem.
That 'unconventionality' I think came from his father Joe Sr. who had 'some experience' dealing with (manipulating) life's harsh realities. I can cite a fairly long list bot to save reading will not do so here.
JFK on the surface spoke & sang the then liberal playbook....but his actual treasury & econ policies have a 'libertarian'...even 'conservative' echo. I do know for a fact the then 'news' media was totally enraptured by this superbly public relations driven administration (again old Joe ..... the post-Wall St, pre-29crash, pump & dumper, turns to Hollywood starlets to feed his dark energies as movie studio head ..where he learned to 'market projections' ala stimulating interest in movies....)
Important why start with JFK: if you really read different histories of those 3 years (the first 'histories' post-assasination were nothing more than hero-worship paens...it took about 20 years before clarity was offered), some mighty strange stuff went on. Maybe the FDR and Wilson administrations were like comparable in terms of 'hidden' stuff that no one seemed to want to acknowledge or comprehend. Note: This is not to pick on Dems per se, but the level of 'behind-the-scenes' activity seems to dwarf modern GOP Pres (yeah, Harding was edgy ala 'political' cronyism but the rest of his Administration was divorced from corruption except the notorious Interior Department, Coolidge was straightforward & clean, Eisenhower could be argued was as much Dem as GOP) ....especially when rumors of such stuff were floating around but anyone who brought them up was immediately deemed a 'crack-pot' ...except much of the rumors turned out to be true.
So, for what are probably interesting (or maybe bizarre) reasons, I think the 'pre-financialization' period starts with JFK's term..... then is certainly manifested in the 'guns & butter' approach of LBJ. Not to defend Nixon but DeGaulle (another wily guy) forced Nixon's/USA's hand. Nixon was like a moderate LBJ for the young here ...but the left hated him from the 50s when the Alger Hiss/Rosenberg stuff was something they (the left) refused to address which brought Nixon a lot of notoriety which he 'rode'. And the preceding is pretty well-established now (not Nixon but the left ignoring the actual 'sovietization' that was going .....the finally released, de-classified Venona File made this evident....but once a 'target' of the left ......forever a target it seems).
The EPA creation under Nixon is an example that he was not really that 'conservative' as the left seemed to hysterically argue immediately whenevere Nixon's name came up. Like any bureaucracy, you give it life on a potentially important topic and like a real monster, it draws power unto itself under administrative law concepts established under the FDR administration.
Last, no one ever brings up how G. William Miller was 'deposed' as head of the Federal Reserve. That story in itself would suggest the then power structure of this 'private' corporation.
Wide ranging blurb.....but stream of consciousness posting doesn't quite get us there.
The shadow govt. is always there, in everyplace and through every period in history. I wouldn't be suprised if they turned up a clay tablet that was a loan to a Sumarian King to pay troops for his newest hell-raising scheme.
The wealthy drive political policy to their own ends since the first walled cities arose in dim history. Every king needs supporters and those supporters only stay that way as long as it is profitable.
It's a human thing but it resembles a cockroach colony. You may never see one in daylight but the evidence that they exist is visible no matter how hard you try to keep the place vermin free.
Cockroaches are eternal.
Boric acid, sugar, and cocoa powder.
It's like the Colt .45 for cockroaches.
Works every time.
You numbskull!! Can't you read???
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/02/06/257k-new-jobs-added-in-ja...
"....average hourly earnings went up by 0.5 percent in one month, the most since November 2008."
A Whole one half of one percent, gawwdddamnit!!!
Maybe you are right, since jobs go begging for workers, too.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/chick-sexer-60k-year-job-nobody-...
Hah! It's always amazing that even after all this people still think (brain damage??) that Debt is wealth.
+1
... : < !
If you had managed to get some banksters to loan you 1 billion dollars, and you took, say, 400,000,000 of it as compensation, you are in the top 1/10 of on per cent. Then you declare bankruptcy, and hightail it for St. Barth's or Tortolla on your yacht, with a gaggle of bikini clad, gold diggers.
Debt IS most definitely wealth if you know how to play it, and have no compunction about screwing the creditors stupid enough to lend it to you.
classic ponzi that is
when one runs out of greater fools (those willing to borrow to consume more) the whole ponzi collapses
But something changed around 2009. Expanding debt and leverage no longer boosted wages.
Well, yeah. After debt is increased beyond a certain point, servicing the debt becomes such a huge burden that economic activity can only decline. And this doesn't even account for the additional inefficiencies generated by malinvestment, which fiat and debt unavoidably create.
All of which traces back to 1971 and 1913.
See SpeakerFTD's comment above, CHS has it completely ass-backwards.
"This chart does not support the author's conclusion. It actually shows the opposite. Wages are either growing faster than debt or are falling more slowly then debt."
Hmm maybe , the only way the conclusion could be right is if the chart is showing wages/debt instead of debt/wages.
But still I find the idea that more debt and stagnant wages can be a good thing doubtful, wages aren't really going up any meaningful amount. . . 0.5cents ~1$ or 2$ more dollars per hour is not going to save anyone in this environment.
I think a better way to look at it would be debt/wages and then take that number and weigh it against prices of food and gas for the same period to get an effective gauge for whats really going on.
Again you are still basing all your work on made up numbers for the most part, so everything is subject to scrutiny.
No such luck ("the only way the conclusion could be right is if the chart is showing wages/debt instead of debt/wages"). Thanks to papaswamp post near beginning of thread.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=13eS
Yeah nice chart, but Wages and compensation used here are growing like a Rocket to the Moon:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/A576RC1Q027SBEA
Garbage in, Garbage out.
Weekly and hourly earnings data from the Current Population Survey
Series Id: LEU0252881600
Series title: (unadj)- Constant (1982-84) dollar adjusted to CPI-U- Median usual weekly earnings, Employed full time, Wage and salary workers
Year Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Annual
1979 339 334 325 328 332
1980 324 314 315 317 318
1981 317 311 304 314 312
2012 337 335 329 336 335
2013 334 333 330 337 333
2014 339 328 332
Constant Dollars, Weekly Earning same in 1979 as 2014.
The data that CHS used shows increased wages and Salary as well. Looks like $1 Trillion Dollar increase from 2009.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/A132RC1 Compensation of Employees, Received: Wage and Salary Disbursements: Private Industries
This is the death point of a currency.
When it gets progressively harder to service a debt the longer you have it, eventually you will have most people saving and paying down debt . . . causing massive deflation . . . decreasing wages . . . lower employment . . . more expensive monthly payments (not nominally but in terms of purchasing power you surrender) . . . etc.
Thats when a currency system is about to fail after a period of extreme monetary expansion like we had 2000~2009 , everything that was built up, has to come tumbling down for the economic energy to keep a balance.
That means stocks have to come down (at some point), home prices have to come down (at some point), car prices have to come down (at some point), energy prices have to come down (at some point), and when it comes to metals . . . anything can happen depending how scared everyone is . . . but generally when people are starving they sell their gold / jewelry if they have any . . . so gold should dip . . . the only way gold pans out is if the central bank shits its bricks and starts QE 4~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 and exponentially increases the money supply every month. . . but I have my doubts because the last few rounds of QE did nothing for inflation because the banks just stole all the money and sat on it and dolled it out as bonuses. . . . hence the boom in luxury homes, cars, and yachts etc. . . . (tax payer pretty much bought all the bankers a bunch of expensive toys) thats all QE amounted to . . .
Helicopter money is coming, the only problem is , you might also need to be one of the lucky few with a private helicopter to catch any of it . . . ^^
Helicopter money has been here big time since 2002. Comments above describe the effect of Velocity of Federal Spending and Money Creation... in massive slow down. But as we get more complex, more regulations, more levels of government, more agencies, more Tax Laws... we need more experts for or investments and businesses. I just call this corruption. Wealthy Can out spend all the small people in their government provided advantages... but like leaches, they are killing the host, small businesses and households.
Looks like 1981 was the Money Velocity high, note manufacturing plunged 1979.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1V (Top was 2007 Q4 at 10.7, now down to 6.3)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V (Top was 1997 Q3 at 2.2, now down to 1.5)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZMV (Top was 1981 Q1 at 3.5, now down to 1.4)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/Mult (Top was January 1987 at 3.1, now down to .7)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP (Employees: Manufacturing 12.1 M Persons)
Total US Debt
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO ($57.9 T Exponential Growth, All Sectors; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level)
Foreign Owned Assets
Here is a look at Exponential Growth (2004-2008) of Foreign Owned Assets in the USA from the Department of Commerce.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/iip_glance.htm ($28 Trillion foreign compared to $24 for US) (This is very interesting as Big Banks are growing strongly, but the number of total us banks is dramatically decreasing, like someone is gaming the system, Commercial Banks in the U.S. - FRED - St. Louis Fed)
Consumer Credit
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HCCSDODNS $3.27 Trillion Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Consumer Credit; Liability, Level
Total Federal Debt
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GFDEBTN (Total Federal Debt $18.1 TN)
Transfer Payments
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TRP6001A027NBEA (SNAP Payments, data no longer updated 1-1-2012)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/W014RU1Q027NBEA (Federal government current expenditures: Current transfer payments
$558.0 Billions of Dollars, data no longer updated 2013)
Student Loans
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FGCCSAQ027S $825 B Federal government; consumer credit, student loans; asset, Level (Doesn't include Private Sector Student Loans)
My partial example of Helicopter money from Fiscal Spending which now has again doubled but is not creating new business or new wealth for the Middle Class:
(Below dollars in Millions)
Year, Revenue, Outlays, Tot US Deficit, President
1980, $1,028.30, $1,175.10, $909,041, J. Carter
1988, $1,235.60, $1,446.50, $2,601,104, R. Reagan
1992, $1,282.70, $1,623.90, $4,001,787 G. H Bush
2000, $2,025.50, $1,789.20, $5,628,700, W. Clinton
2007, $2,128.80, $2,263.10, $8,950,744, G. W. Bush
What can you get the entire population to go out, take a loan for and buy?
No one is buying houses anymore . . .
No one can afford their rent. . .
Most people on fucking food stamps . . .
Half the population doesn't even have a job. . .
20% or so don't even have a fucking bank account never mind a fucking loan. . .
90% of the property outside the cities is GARBAGE and if you take a loan out against it you are pretty much committing suicide unless you buy the entire neighborhood and bulldoze the excess housing that is boarded up/condemned next to the house you plan to rehabilitate.
The only ones left with $$$ are the ones printing it under the table eating 200$ steaks and driving Maserati's' while the world burns . . . XD
From the looks of it the only jobs being added are in sectors of government that have to deal with jack-boot-thuging Americans out of more tax revenue ^^ ... gota keep feeding the machine. . .
Only in communist america can you have less people working, more people giving up looking for work, and somehow a lower unemployment number lol . . . lets just get the entire population on foodstamps and disability and the unemployment rate will drop to zero.
YAY - we're doomed
" Yes we can ! "
or maybe it is just picking up steam and this positive adjustment will create a base for banks to start lending again ....and we may get a real credit boom again :)
You may have missed the 2 bubbles mentioned in the last Fed report.
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/02/20/fed-warns-of-two-bubbles/
Here is how to prepare for the worst.
http://michaelekelley.com/2014/10/16/8-things-to-do-when-recession-happens/
Good luck!
Ähm... It would be more meaningfull to show both debt and wages. this chart leaves lots of room for speculation. a positive slope in your chart could mean: debt and wages have increased but debt increased faster, debt stayed constant as wages declined, debt fell slower than wages.