{"id":13669,"date":"2015-10-22T05:59:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T10:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13669"},"modified":"2015-10-22T05:59:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T10:59:18","slug":"the-end-of-the-world-has-already-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13669","title":{"rendered":"The End of the World Has Already Begun"},"content":{"rendered":"

The End of the World Has Already Begun<\/a><\/h3>\n

Disappearing Growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing much to report from the stock market yesterday. Investors are regaining their calm. A few weeks ago, it looked as though the end of the world had begun. We are talking, of course, about the world in which credit, stocks, and central bank reputations only go up.<\/p>\n

\"EcclesFated to eventually become a house of ill repute: the Mariner Eccles building (Fed board HQ)
\nPhoto credit:\u00a0AgnosticPreachersKid<\/a><\/p>\n

But after a big fright in August, investors recovered their relaxed madness. They concluded that there was nothing to worry about. They may be right. You never know. But our guess is that the end of the world has already begun\u2026 and they just can\u2019t face it.<\/p>\n

\"1-SPX\"<\/a>The SPX, monthly \u2013 a proxy for the seemingly never-ending asset bubble. What if the end of the party is already here and people have just not noticed yet? \u2013 click to enlarge.<\/p>\n

Since the end of World War II, credit has been expanding in the U.S. At first, it was a healthy expansion. Young, middle-class families took out mortgages and ran up bills on \u201ccharge cards,\u201d such as Diners Club and American Express.<\/p>\n

Then, in the late 1950s, came the first credit cards. This was accompanied by large increases in consumer credit. Until the 1970s, all was well, because wages were rising, too. And with so much new technology coming online, people believed their wages could only increase.<\/p>\n

Debt was no problem \u2013 neither for the nation nor for households. We would \u201cgrow our way out of it.\u201d But a strange \u2013 and as yet not fully understood \u2013 new trend began in the 1970s. After accounting for inflation, incomes for most Americans dramatically tapered off.<\/p>\n

\"2-debt,<\/a>Total credit market debt, federal debt and GDP \u2013 a non-problem on its way to becoming an intractable problem \u2026 \u2013 click to enlarge.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The End of the World Has Already Begun Disappearing Growth Nothing much to report from the stock market yesterday. Investors are regaining their calm. A few weeks ago, it looked as though the end of the world had begun. We are talking, of course, about the world in which credit, stocks, and central bank reputations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6275,6190,124,175,195,303,305,391,426,1138],"class_list":["post-13669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-actingman","tag-bill-bonner","tag-central-banks","tag-credit","tag-debt","tag-fed","tag-federal-reserve","tag-growth","tag-inflation","tag-stock-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13670,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669\/revisions\/13670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}