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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Adams who wrote (108369)	6/12/2001 10:40:20 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

<Heinz and others have asserted that consumer debt has accumulated at an increasing rate of late. That should be seen as an increase in the slope on a log chart. I don't see it, though this data does lag some, so Heinz et al may be correct.> From the same USA article quoting the fed I think: <Consumer debt soared at an unexpectedly rapid 10.5% annual rate in February, according to the Federal Reserve. Analysts said it was possible that consumers went on a spending spree. But they said it is just as likely that credit card holders hit with huge home heating bills minimized their credit card payments and let a lot of debt slide forward, incurring big interest charges.> Income was up a fraction of that. <I'll be posting another chart momentarily that shows debt as a percent of networth shortly.> That would be cool... as I've said before, in theory the larger the entitiy in revenues the more debt can be taken on... so an increase in debt in itself isn't bad if revenues are there and can be expected to be there in the future to support it. This is why I like this chart much better: rbcassociates.homestead.com I can readily see the amounts that debt has increase and eyeball the % ages.... so since '94 consumer debt has increased roughly 60% by your chart... now I'd compare that to increases in personal income after taxes or some such. NOW... to me one big worry, as I've said before, is that we've experienced a huge boom by any measure... and I would expect to see plenty of reserves socked away for the recession... yet everywhere I look people are MORE in debt than ever before [anecdotal... people I run into], and have more in the stock market, new cars and second homes than I've ever seen [these numbers are born out by % assets in stocks, average age of auto's and homes]. Even the 'bullish' numbers presented in articles I've read certainly don't show folks socking it away for any type of recession let along the type of recession I'm expecting... after all, the debt service numbers are near all time high, although 14.6% doesn't seem high to me. DAK