Here's an excerpt with the link from Doug Noland's piece this weekend I found interesting.
"In response to models incorporated into his analysis (constructed by Jason Benderly), Epstein stated, “Over the 56 years since 1946, consumer borrowing habits don’t appear to have changed at all.” Geez, I can’t even believe I have allowed myself to respond to such nonsense. But I did go back to 1946 data and crunched some numbers. I see that, as a percentage of National Income, total personal sector liabilities were 31%, non-farm mortgages outstanding were 13%, and consumer Credit was 5% back in 1946. Have borrowing habits led to any meaningful changes since then? Well, at the end of 2001, total personal sector liabilities had increased to 133% of National Income, non-farm mortgages 70%, and consumer Credit 21%. Other noteworthy comparisons have non-farm corporate liabilities at 44% in 1946 versus 101% at the end of 2001, total mortgage debt 23% versus 93%, security Credit 3% versus 10%, state and local government debt 7% versus 17%, and total Credit market debt 192% versus 359%. Personal savings was 9% compared to about 2% today."
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