Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old September 11th, 2009 #1
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,751
Blog Entries: 34
Default Consumer Debt and Savings

[lots of good stuff from Bonner, as usual]

A Consumer Economy at a Standstill

by Bill Bonner

This recovery is wonderful in every way, except the important ones. It is like a shiny new airplane. It has glossy aluminum wings. It has plush seats in the first class section. Trim stewardesses serve drinks. Movies are available on demand in all sections.

A majority of those polled by Bloomberg think things are great; 61% said they thought they economy had taken off and was flying high. Stocks are up. Commodities are up. And here’s another Bloomberg headline: “Global investors give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke top marks…”

The recovery has won the approval of economists and the public. It has almost everything going for it. It just won’t fly!

Comes news this morning that the US economy is still on the runway. This report from the AP explains why:

Consumers slashed their borrowing in July by the largest amount on record as job losses and uncertainty about the economic recovery prompted Americans to rein in their debt.

“Economists expect consumers will continue to spend less, save more and trim debt to get household finances decimated by the recession into better shape. Such behavior, though, is a recipe for a lethargic revival, because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

“The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that consumers in July ratcheted back their credit by a larger-than-anticipated $21.6 billion from June, the most on records dating to 1943. Economists had expected credit to drop by $4 billion.”

Hey, not bad…economists were only off by 430%. Consumers are paying down debt more than four times faster than they thought. Partly because they want to. And partly because they have to. They don’t want to borrow…and banks don’t want to lend to them anyway. Consumer credit is falling at a 10% annual rate, based on July figures. Credit card debt is going down at an 8% rate.

When they pay down a dollar’s worth of debt that is one dollar less in the consumer economy. But it’s also a dollar that is not borrowed. Where the consumer spent all his income two years ago…and borrowed more so that he could increase his consumption even further…now, he doesn’t borrow…and he doesn’t spend all his income either. Now, the money that used to pour into consumer spending leaks out.

As we reported yesterday, personal spending is dropping…the figures were down in four of the last six quarters – something that has never happened before, since they began keeping records in 1947. And the level of consumer spending is down 33% from a year ago – with discretionary spending now down to a level it hasn’t seen in 50 years.

Of course, that’s just what we’ve been saying. The great credit expansion began in 1945. It ended in 2007. Credit will contract for many years. One study, also reported here, suggested that consumers would spend 14% less – even after the economy was back on its feet. We estimate that the total level of debt must go down below 200% of GDP. If that’s correct, we need to pay down about $25 trillion of debt. That won’t be easy and it won’t be quick.

And it will mean high levels of joblessness for a long time. Already, two out of five working-age Californians are unemployed. The other three are working the shortest workweeks in history. No wonder; with spending dropping, sales are falling. So businesses don’t need so many people to make, ship, sell and service their products. Then, of course, when they lay off workers to cut expenses, the unemployed workers have to cut spending!

How is it possible for a consumer economy to grow when consumers are spending less money? Of course, it’s not. This is not a genuine recovery…it’s an impostor. A fraud. A recovery impersonator.

While the private sector is paying down debt, the public sector is adding debt at a ferocious pace – about $150 billion per month. Public spending isn’t the same as private spending. It is usually spending for things that people wouldn’t buy if they had a choice.

And it comes with a whole new risk attached – the risk that the feds will inflate their way out of debt rather than pay it off.

Government spending does not bring a durable, real prosperity. (If it did…think how easy it would be to make people rich; governments love to spend money!) It may look like a recovery. It may have shiny wings and spiffy-looking stewardesses. But it won’t fly.

The World Economic Forum has taken the United States down from the number one position. America is no longer the world’s “most competitive” economy. That title goes to Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the US banking system is rated #109 in the world – just below Tanzania.

“More than one in four US banks announced an unprofitable quarter,” Strategic Short Report’s Dan Amoss tells us.

US banks became leveraged casinos during the bubble years. They’ve still got a lot of leverage…and are still trying to relive those glory days when players lined up to spin the wheel…and free drinks flowed by Niagara Falls.

Dan will certainly find the best way to play the downfall of US banks – after all, he did call the collapse of Lehman six months early – leading his readers to as much as a $200,000 profit. Look for regular updates on the banking industry from Dan in these pages…

September 11, 2009

Bill Bonner [send him mail] is the author, with Addison Wiggin, of Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of The 21st Century and Empire of Debt: The Rise Of An Epic Financial Crisis and the co-author with Lila Rajiva of Mobs, Messiahs and Markets (Wiley, 2007).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner413.html
 
Old September 11th, 2009 #2
-JC
Doesn't suffer fools well
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 5,740
Default "Meanwhile, the US banking system is rated #109 in the world – just below Tanzania."

Why?

The following video is “the true story of the downfall of Washington Mutual,” the bank with the advertised new, "progressive" policy of targeting its advertising and loaning to those it knew couldn’t pay back the loans. This was a major contributor to the world financial crisis, particularly in Southern California’s “Inland Empire,” where the number and percentage of non-performing was among the highest in the nation.

[color=#0000CC][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/J/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image002.jpg[/IMG][/COLO"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
00:30 - 2 years ago youtube.com
banking another way ... banking another way ...


Couldn't embed this one, so you'll have to go here to view:

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/J/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image003.jpg[/IMG]
The True Story of The Downfall of Washington Mutual: Facts That Must Be Addressed
06:23 - 10 months ago metacafe.com
On September 25th
Washington Mutual was seized by the FDIC and sold to JP Morgan for 1.9 billion dollars. WaMu was clearly in the wrong, but was there actually a reason for the ...
metacafe.com



[color=#0000CC][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/J/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/03/clip_image001.jpg[/IMG][/COLO"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Watch this video on

February 17, 2008 10:08 p.m. PT
Seattle Post Intelligencer
The Insider: WaMu visualizes new ad campaign

WHOO WHO? More bankers are hitting the unemployment lines, although this time they happen to be fictional.
Washington Mutual last week unveiled a new advertising campaign encompassing print, billboards, radio, TV, direct mail and the Internet, built around the theme of "Whoo hoo!" That's supposed to reflect moments of "a dream-like state where customers visualize moments of personal elation in response to learning about WaMu products and services…" [for example [color=blue]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63O7aIHcfmA[/COLO"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.].


The bigger story, though, is that WaMu has unceremoniously retired the pin-stripe-suited "bankers in the pen" supposed to represent those villainous competitors doing that nickel-and-diming… [Couldn't embed this one either so go here [color=blue]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ7EIKbnnkw[/COLO"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.]

[That didn’t work for them either
.]


WAMU’s target market:

Last edited by -JC; September 11th, 2009 at 02:44 PM.
 
Old November 20th, 2012 #3
Rick Ronsavelle
Senior Member
 
Rick Ronsavelle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 4,006
Default the end of savings equals the end

 
Old November 20th, 2012 #4
Kievsky
Senior Member
 
Kievsky's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 4,229
Default

Good thread revival, Rick. What is happening is quite fascinating. People that used to have regular jobs as auto mechanics (people I know personally) are now going to Labor Ready for 5:30am to compete with Mexicans for day labor jobs. I taught my friends a slogan, "Deportation is the best jobs program."

They sent away our factories and mills. They conglomerated our family farms into massive industrial agribusiness. They destroyed our educational system, and raised the legal working age making young American kids unemployable. Then they said, "Oh, Americans suck, let's import foreigners to work."

So they screwed over Americans six ways to Sunday. I guess that's our comeuppance for murdering Germany in World War II. That's a meme we should spread everywhere -- America's decline and fall is our just desserts for our unjust intervention in World War II.
__________________
Godzilla mit uns!
http://mindweaponsinragnarok.wordpress.com
 
Old September 2nd, 2013 #5
samantracarol
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1
Default Re: Consumer Debt and Savings

The consumer debts is an asset for the lender and access a good amount for those who are engaged in the same, yet the saving can be done more appropriately.
 
Reply

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:03 AM.
Page generated in 0.07948 seconds.