More than 20 years ago, economist Hyman Minsky (1986) proposed a “financial instability hypothesis.” He argued that prosperous times can often induce borrowers to accumulate debt beyond their ability to repay
by Zero Hedge - May 22nd, 2009 8:50 pm
Courtesy of Tyler at Zero Hedge
One of the core macroeconomic themes that Zero Hedge has been expounding on since inception, which mirrors some of the major concerns of David Rosenberg, has been the evaporation of consumer wealth, income and equity as a function of both declining stock and real asset values and persistently high consumer debt. In an economic paper, the San Francisco Federal Reserve confirms that these concerns are not unfounded, and could be the very core of the processes that undermine the administration’s attempts to restore economic growth.
While the administration is doing all it can through various media conduits to imprint the idea that inflation is all but a guaranteed reality at this point, so that consumers begin borrowing at an expansive pace yet again, consumer leveraging is exactly the process that has commenced unwinding, and the obvious impact on the personal saving rate which has been growing at a dramatic pace, has been visible throughout the economy. And as the consumer deleverages additionally, deflation is a certainty, as the combined impact of asset value decline and associated leverage flow through the economy, further depressed prices of goods and services. The four charts below from the Fed’s release strike at the heart of the administration’s faulty attempt to relever the US consumer.
Unfortunately for Bernanke and Geithner, the deleveraging process has commenced, and regardless of how many treasuries are issued, and how much additional debt the U.S. incurs, the demand side for credit is just not there, sticking banks with basements full of shrinkwrapped packages of hundred dollar bills, that will sit dusty and unused for years. The only immediate impact is that at some point in the not too distant future, the U.S. will need to print bonds to satisfy just the interest payments on these very bonds, which is an unsustainable state and only has one outcome.
In a very amusing section from the release, the San Fran Fed is discussing the financial behaviour of the consumer, when in fact the very same words are 100% applicable to the U.S. Treasury itself: