debt

Andy Xie thinks the Fed is on an inflationary path.  Last month, he wrote an article in Caijing which says that ‘stagflation lite’ is the Federal Reserve’s preferred outcome. What’s interesting is his recent article about the need for…

Columbia University Professor and former Federal Reserve official Frederic Mishkin wrote a much-discussed Op-Ed in the Financial Times yesterday. In it, he asks Are potential asset-price bubbles always dangerous? He answers this…

I have just taken a look at the consumer credit figures for September, released just yesterday by the Federal Reserve. The data do show some modest deleveraging, especially when looking at the recent increase in nominal GDP. However, it is…

When it comes to the housing meltdowns in the richest economies, the US has been matched only by Spain, Ireland and the UK. All four countries have seen spectacular losses of wealth in the housing sector over the last two years. The…

You have probably heard a lot of chatter from the media about a newfound thrift amongst American consumers. The general take is that Americans, faced with lost incomes and wealth and burdened by record levels of debt, have moved away…

I found the recent consumer credit data unsatisfying because the data seemed to point in two directions. The seasonally-adjusted data showed a large $12 billion decrease in consumer credit which received headlines. Meanwhile, the…

In my last post, I presented you with a bunch of data on debt levels broken down by sector of the economy (see “A brief look at the Asset-Based Economy at economic turns”).  I found it interesting that a secular pattern seemed to be at…

This morning I again wanted to challenge my somewhat bullish medium-term outlook but bearish longer-term view on the US economy – this time by looking at the data on debt. What follows is going to be a very numbers-heavy post.  So, I…

This is just in from the FDIC (emphasis added below). It should make clear that the banking system is still weak: Credit quality declined sharply for loan commitments of $20 million or more held by multiple federally supervised…

Let’s say I run a company. For the sake of argument, we’ll call it a shoe store in New York City. I am making $100,000 net per year now. But, I look around me and see huge opportunity for growth. So I go to my bank and ask for a loan to…