Saturday, May 8, 2010

Debt Updates from excellent blog post

There have been several good charts of debt lately. The oil Drum shows the components of debt. Total debt per person (US) federal, state, business, mortgage and consumer credit) is a little over three times personal income. On a share basis over a life time, that means one should be able to trade a ten percent drop in personal income for total freedom from all debt, on a share basis forever--that is burdening out grand^n-children, it would be a much smaller percentage. Although ten percent is a nice chunk of one's income, for most American's it is more than survivable. And I think many Americans would gladly exchange the psychological burden of $100,000 over one's head for a ten percent cut off the top from their take home pay.

Likewize Dr. Ritholtz should be praised for posting a chart showing the debt owed by five troubled European economies and to whom it owed.

Paul Krugman showed that at current interest rates, the current federal deficit and even higher is quite sustainable. However, the danger of short-term debt is when it comes due and one can't sell the new bonds to cover that debt. The solution is a share debt-- without arbitary restrictions.

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