This recession did change spending, at least for a few months. When the recession hit Americans had a negative savings rate, the first time ever we had the ability to spend more than we actually brought in. As the recession progressed, Americans did start saving and we took the personal savings rate to 6% (this may sound low but it is much better than 0) and with this we were back to the early 1990s savings rate. Yet that hasn’t lasted. The savings rate is now below 4 percent and retail spending is now up strongly. Given the balance sheet for most middle class Americans this is not a good sign but shows the “spend until you go broke mentality” is alive and going strong. But part of this is largely engineered by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.
Let us look at the personal savings rate and retail spending for the last 20 years:
The savings rate has been trending to the negative side for many years so that trend is unmistakable. Retail spending has always been growing yet as you will notice on the chart above, the only major dip came from this current recession. Why? Because other recessions did not impact credit (debt) to the level of this recession. This recession cut at the core of the banking debt machine that was fueling our economy for decades.
Into the mouth of HELL we march.
ReplyDeleteI am a large contractor and I had to meet with an account for two hours last week about a past due $2k bill. Never seen anything like it in my 30+ years. Companies are putting up a good false front as they are dying on the vine. They will only be able to fake it for so long.
ReplyDeleteMany people recovered from their delusions before the majority of us.
ReplyDeleteI was watching some old stand up comedy by Bill Hicks. He would rail about the fake economy back in the early 90s. Government sponsored terror, assassinations, etc. My regret is it took me a long time to wake up about all of these things.
Better late than never though.
By unlikely coincidence, an abnormal percentage of those that have warned us about what is coming have died suddenly of cancer, suicide, heart attack, etc. True heroes that died before their time.
That sheeple do not want to hear truth. Many of us have learned that lesson the hard way.
When you hear news that a plane load of political leaders have died in a plane crash, be very skeptical. Very rarely are such things an accident. Too bad the Polish people are as naive as the sheeple here. The person filming the aftermath and gunfire at the scene was stabbed, near death, then stabbed again at the hospital.
ReplyDeleteThese are the facts you will NEVER hear about on corporate banker TV.
I heard that HELL was in season. Yes.
ReplyDeleteI heard that.
You know I've herd it countless times...
ReplyDeleteSomeone is told they have terminal cancer and will not live for more than a year. They are still relatively healthy in the beginning, so they say F-it, I'm gonna max out my credit cards, stop paying my mortgage and part like a rock star till the end.
We all have "terminal cancer" and those who can, are buying toys like Ipads and having fun.
As for 2:06, I'll bet your client has the $2,000 owed to you, but they have decided to use that money to party till they close the doors and then file for bankruptcy.
I wish we could edit our posts after uploading them.
ReplyDeleteThat's "Party like a Rock Star"
Altho 'Part like a rock star' works if you have a filthy imagination like I do.
ReplyDelete