Home » Posts tagged 'peak debt'

Tag Archives: peak debt

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Soon Comes The Deluge

January 20, 2016

Soon Comes The Deluge

The robo-machines are now having a grand old time hazing the August lows at 1870 on the S&P, and may succeed in ginning up another dead-cat bounce or two. But this market is going down for the count owing to a perfect storm.

To wit, the global and US economies are heading into an extended deflationary recession; S&P earnings peaked at $106 per share more than a year ago and are already at $90, heading much lower; and the central banks of the world are out of dry powder after a 20-year binge of balance sheet expansion.

Global Central Bank Balance Sheet Explosion

The latter is surely the most important of the three. It means there will be no printing press driven reflation of the financial markets this time around. And without more monetary juice it’s just a matter of time before a whole generation of punters and front-runners abandon the casino and head for the hills.

Even with today’s ragged bounce, the broad market has now gone sideways for nearly 700 days. The BTFD meme is loosing its mojo because it only worked so long as the Fed-following herd could point to more printing press cash flowing into the market or promises of “accommodation” that were credible.  But that will soon be ancient history.
^SPX Chart

^SPX data by YCharts

Indeed, it is already evident that “escape velocity” has again escaped. Q4 GDP growth is now running at barely 0.5%, and the current quarter could actually be negative for reasons we will analyze in the days ahead.

But the real economic situation is actually worse than the apparent flatling trend of recent months. As we have long insisted, the GDP does not measure true gains in national wealth or main street living standards.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Lull Before The Storm—–It’s Getting Narrow At The Top, Part 2

December 2, 2015

The Lull Before The Storm—–It’s Getting Narrow At The Top, Part 2

The danger lurking in the risk asset markets was succinctly captured by MarketWatch’s post on overnight action in Asia. The latter proved once again that the casino gamblers are incapable of recognizing the on-rushing train of global recession because they have become addicted to “stimulus” as a way of life:

Shares in Hong Kong led a rally across most of Asia Tuesday, on expectations for more stimulus from Chinese authorities, specifically in the property sector…….The gains follow fresh readings on China’s economy, which showed further signs of slowdown in manufacturing data released Tuesday (which) remains plagued by overcapacity, falling prices and weak demand. The dimming view casts doubt that the world’s second-largest economy can achieve its target growth of around 7% for the year. The central bank has cut interest rates six times since last November.

More stimulus from China? Now that’s a true absurdity—-not because the desperate suzerains of red capitalism in Beijing won’t try it, but because it can’t possibly enhance the earnings capacity of either Chinese companies or the international equities.

In fact, it is plain as day that China has reached “peak debt”. Additional borrowing there will not only prolong the Ponzi and thereby exacerbate the eventual crash, but won’t even do much in the short-run to brake the current downward economic spiral.

That’s because China is so saturated with debt that still lower interest rates or further reduction of bank reserve requirements would amount to pushing on an exceedingly limp credit string.

To wit, at the time of the 2008 crisis, China’s “official” GDP was about $5 trillion and its total public and private credit market debt was roughly $8 trillion. Since then, debt has soared to $30 trillion while GDP has purportedly doubled. But  that’s only when you count the massive outlays for white elephants and malinvestments which get counted as fixed asset spending.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

.

US Credit Growth – the First Cracks?

September 24, 2015

US Credit Growth – the First Cracks?

Inflationary Bank Lending and Money Supply Growth

Given that there is currently no “QE” program underway – with the exception of the reinvestment scheme designed to prevent the Fed’s balance sheet from shrinking (if it were to shrink, the money supply would decline as well) – money supply growth depends primarily on the amount of fiduciary media created ex nihilo by commercial banks.

Putting it differently, it depends on the growth in bank lending, since new uncovered deposit money comes into being by the extension of credit by banks. This deposit money is a money substitute that is only partially covered by standard money, or potential standard money (i.e., bank reserves). However, it has to be regarded as part of the money supply, given that it is used for the final payment of goods and services. From the perspective of its users, it is money.

financial-bubble-credit

Photo credit: .Kai

Since the crisis of 2008 and the collapse of the mortgage credit bubble, the following trends have been in evidence: lending to corporations has quickly reached growth rates usually associated with boom conditions. Consumer lending has by contrast been more subdued, with mortgage credit growth not surprisingly only very slowly moving back into positive territory. Most of the acceleration in bank lending could be observed once “QE” was tapered and ended – as a result, broad US money supply growth has remained brisk, even though it is far below its peak levels of recent years.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What ‘Escape Velocity’? December Business Sales And Inventories Repudiate The Money Printers’ Myth

February 14, 2015

What ‘Escape Velocity’? December Business Sales And Inventories Repudiate The Money Printers’ Myth

It is plain as day that massive central bank money printing and perpetual ZIRP do not rejuvenate the main street economy under conditions of “peak debt”. And the reason is so obvious that only Keynesian economists can’t grasp it.

To wit, if the balance sheets of households and businesses are tapped out—–then artificially suppressing interest rates cannot induce them to borrow even more money. Accordingly, spending is constrained to what can be funded from current income and cash flow after any set aside for new savings. In contrast to the four decades of the great credit expansion between 1970 and 2008, therefore, GDP can no longer be stimulated by incremental outlays derived from hocking household and business balance sheets.

The graph below of the long-term trend of household leverage—measured as total mortgage, credit card and other consumer debt compared to wage and salary income—–demonstrates the new normal. During the long period of credit expansion, the Fed’s resort to low interest rates to stimulate borrowing and spending worked because households started the period with relatively clean balance sheets. As a result, central bank monetary stimulus caused leverage ratios to be ratcheted higher and higher in response to each round of rate cutting.

Self-evidently that ratcheting process has stopped, and household leverage ratios have fallen, albeit to levels which are still aberrantly high by historical standards. What this means is that after the peak debt inflection point was reached, the constraint on borrowing would not be the interest rate, as had been the case during the great credit inflation, but the availability of income to leverage.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

‘Peak Debt’ At Work: Savings at the Pump Are Staying in Consumer Wallets

February 2, 2015

‘Peak Debt’ At Work: Savings at the Pump Are Staying in Consumer Wallets

Americans are taking the money they are saving at the gas pump and socking it away, a sign of consumers’ persistent caution even when presented with an unexpected windfall.

This newfound commitment to frugality was illustrated this past week when the nation’s biggest payment-card companies said they aren’t seeing evidence consumers are putting their gasoline savings toward discretionary items like travel, home renovations and electronics.

Instead, people are more often putting the money aside for a rainy day or using it to pay down debt. That more Americans are saving their bounty at the pump comes as a surprise, because the personal savings rate, after rising during and after the recession, has declined steadily over the past two years.

“We haven’t seen the extra savings from lower gas prices translate into additional discretionary consumer spending,” said Ajay Banga , chief executive of MasterCard Inc., on a conference call Friday to discuss quarterly earnings.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress