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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   24933 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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And yet the personal savings rate is down, to a historical low. Consumer debt is up.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc.html

This would seem contradictory. If people are wealthier why are they saving less and financing more?

Look at your own damn graph! The precipitous fall in debt shown on the second graph comes in... 2008. Does this not perhaps tell us that taking rising debt as a measure of a bad economy is not a good idea?

Different question. Nobody contests that 2008-2010 was a 'bad economy' (we can also look an unemployment rates to get an inkling).

The issue here is that many metrics are currently showing a 'good' economy and yet, for individuals with bills to pay and debts to service, they might not have a positive outlook based on their actual material circumstances.

Do you note how debt rates were rising as we headed into 2008. That is to say, could we interpret rising debt as sign of a pending recession/correction?

Or, more precisely, what do you think happens when millions of people are overleveraged and then many of them default on debt and/or go bankrupt (or literal banks go out of business) at the same time?

Why isn't that happening currently?

could we interpret rising debt as sign of a pending recession/correction?

I wouldn't say so, but either way this is irrelevant, because it's a completely different question to whether the economy is 'good' or not. Unless you think people (i.e. Republicans) are rating the economy as poor because they've looked at the FRED charts and decided we're headed for another 2008.

Look at it this way. Even retrospectively, most people would describe the early 2000s as good economic times, no?

I wouldn't say so, but either way this is irrelevant, because it's a completely different question to whether the economy is 'good' or not.

I don't think it's irrelevant. The economy isn't just a snapshot, it's a trendline with predictive value. We've got an uptick in the trendline right now, but is it a dead cat bounce or actually indicative of healthy and sustainable economic growth.

Here's the fed in July 2007, after the fuse on the bomb was lit.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/mpr_20070718_part1.htm#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20economy%20generally%20performed,4%2D1%2F2%20percent.

Well if you look at the graph from up the thread, it shows that debt is levelling off.

In any case, would you disagree that the early 2000s were a 'good economy'.

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