On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 15:35 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: > > > Laurent writes: > > PS: the astute reader will have noticed that USA fed/gov debt makes > > 99.99999% of the headlines and papers but count for less than 20% of > > total USA debt, the other 80% is unknown to MSN and most economists. > > One sector debt has (nominally) doubled in the last 8 years and just > > reached 100% of GDP without "anyone" noticing. > > "One sector debt" = ??
Household debt: went from 6.4 trillions in 1999 to 13.3 trillions in Q2 2007 (all nominal - I assume), 75% of it is mortgage debt and the remaining 25% consumer debt (Z1 report page 8). BEA published current dollar GDP for 2007 is 13.8 trillions (Q2 yearly / seasonally adjusted, table 3 of Q3 release) which makes household debt 96% of GDP in the USA. The average yearly household debt increase over the last eight years was 0.86 trillions per year or about 6.2% of 2007 GDP or about 8.8% of 2007 personal consuption expenditure. Truly enormous numbers. I wonder why no one adjust growth by debt variations (debt is just betting on future GDP after all), any taker? Laurent