[yellowcanoe]

Consumer credit relative to after tax income is at record highs due to student loans.

And yet, look how little that ratio has changed since '2000. With all the yelling, crying, you'd think it was a catastrophe.

While I was still working, I used to wonder how it was that in my top 100 city, with the largest state university (a "college town"), so many college students are driving around in nice cars, eating at nice restaurants (the nicest ones I went to - earning an upper middle class salary), living in nice apartments, wearing fancy clothes, etc.

I knew mommy and daddy were paying for part of that. And that jobs would pay for a little of that.

But it turns out that good old student loans can be had for MUCH more than college expenses. So many students live it up while in college -- and then claim it's a catastrophe and that taxpayers should fund that later -- when it gets inconvenient to pay it off.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephendas ... 887df20caf

When I went to college from '77 to '81, I lived like a poor man, because I WAS a poor man. And that was perfectly normal and fine. (There were "rich" kids on campus funded by rich parents who liked to show off, but that was the exception, not the rule.)

Part of the trend in taking on debt isn't so much a sign the economy is "in trouble" -- it's a long term trend toward fiscal irresponsibility. To me, that's a character flaw. Like, say, knowing AGW is destroying the world, but collectively, we aren't willing to do much (if anything) MEANINGFUL about it is a character flaw.

I think you nailed it. I also had a frugal existence while at university. I then started a career at the same university I graduated from so I have seen how the university has changed over the years. To attract students it appears that you must have an attractive campus so all the newer buildings are much more visually appealing (and less functional) than the original buildings built in the late 50's, 60's. Of course many of those older buildings have been renovated to match the new theme. The newer residence buildings are much more luxurious than the original residence buildings. The Residence dining hall serves a much greater variety and higher quality food. A lot more food facilities are located around campus, especially coffee shops, and there always seems to be a lot of students lined up. It really doesn't make sense to me considering that most students are not going to be earning a lot of money immediately after they graduate and will likely be living in an apartment that has seen better days.

[marmico]

Credit card and auto loans are nothingburgers relative to income.

[GHung]

Credit card and auto loans are nothingburgers relative to income.

Right. Including all income including the top 1% ? 10% ? Including those who hold the paper on those debts?

[Outcast_Searcher]

Credit card and auto loans are nothingburgers relative to income.

Right. Including all income including the top 1% ? 10% ? Including those who hold the paper on those debts?

How about in terms of being "a big risk" to the economy? As a non-doomer (as you claim from time to time), you're OK with being objective about that. Right?

[GHung]

Credit card and auto loans are nothingburgers relative to income.

Right. Including all income including the top 1% ? 10% ? Including those who hold the paper on those debts?

How about in terms of being "a big risk" to the economy? As a non-doomer (as you claim from time to time), you're OK with being objective about that. Right?

Oh, I'm a shit-flows-down-hill doomer. Until the pitchforks come out, the top 10% is sitting pretty because they make the rules. Meanwhile, they'll leverage the bottom 50% until they break. Growth requires a surplus, but not for everybody, and student loans are imagined surplus brought forward, but again, not for everybody. I'm betting we, taxpayers, will be bailing out a lot of not-so-employable indebted graduates when the next recession hits.

Meanwhile, Marmico is welcome to post his stats until he's blue in the face.

[onlooker]

Outcast and a few others on this site are very good at getting at the economic minutiae. But they are looking at particular trees and not seeing the entire forest. And the entire forest is this. Americans are chronically in Debt and have been so for years. The Debt of the US continues to rise astronomically. Debt has become a necessary prerequisite for economic activity. We have severely neglected our infrastructure, we have created a highly ueven Economy of well educated people in techno computer type jobs and are leaving many other people behind as downsizing and outsourcing have debilitated the Economy ever more. The GDP is deceptive as it is measuring negative outcomes, like more jails, more use of the Healthcare system, more bad events like car crashes etc.

Finally, an even wider panorama reveals even more disturbing realities. A world full of countries and people in dire poverty. And the all important environmental pillar that supports ALL economic activity is shaking, wobbling and degrading from the burden and stress of our huge population in overshoot. But continue on and say Onlooker is just a incorrigible doomer if it makes you feel better.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Finally, an even wider panorama reveals even more disturbing realities. A world full of countries and people in dire poverty. And the all important environmental pillar that supports ALL economic activity is shaking, wobbling and degrading from the burden and stress of our huge population in overshoot. But continue on and say Onlooker is just a incorrigible doomer if it makes you feel better.

Try making an economic prediction that proves to be accurate a high percentage of the time, and earn some credibility. Posting old links and making incorrect predictions frequently is only going to get you positive attention from those who want to hear doom more than reality.

But if that floats your boat, enjoy.

[onlooker]

First off, I have not been making predictions. Only stating the information from the perspective that does not try and force an optimistic conclusion unlike some. The only instance was the ETP which I admit was a mistake. Also, I notice Outcast you seem to want to lure me into making predictions. Sorry but no thanks.
Instead, you and others point to current minor details of economic vitality without regard to the points I just made which none of you have refuted. Food stamp usage has been rising as a indicator of the falling fortunes of many Americans

https://www.mercatus.org/publications/h ... y-and-cost

The program, which aims at helping lower-income families purchase food products, has witnessed a substantial jump in participation and spending in recent years.

[marmico]

Food stamp usage has been rising as a indicator of the falling fortunes of many Americans

Try again. Recipients of SNAP as a percentage of the population have been falling since 2013.



http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts

[kublikhan]

Outcast and a few others on this site are very good at getting at the economic minutiae. But they are looking at particular trees and not seeing the entire forest. And the entire forest is this. Americans are chronically in Debt and have been so for years. The Debt of the US continues to rise astronomically. Debt has become a necessary prerequisite for economic activity.

Actually that is what you are doing onlooker. You are looking only at the debt pile. IE, the trees, not the forest. But when you step back and look at the debt pile relative to the size of the economy, you would see that for the last decade or so the economy has been growing faster than the debt pile and total US debt is shrinking relative to the size of our economy. Our total debt relative to GDP stopped growing around 2009 and has been shrinking since then.

Many people may be aware of the ballooning US government debt, which is now approaching $20 trillion in 2017. What may not be obvious, however, is that since 2009 the total debt outstanding in the US (including consumer, business, and government debt) has actually dropped when compared to GDP. In fact, the ratio of total us debt to GDP peaked in 2009/Q1 around the 400% mark and has since steadily decreased.

Total US Debt to GDP Ratio – Deleveraging Analysis

Finally, an even wider panorama reveals even more disturbing realities. A world full of countries and people in dire poverty.

Trees. Look at the whole forest onlooker. There have always been people living in dire poverty. However today, there are less. More and more people are leaving dire poverty:

In 1820, the vast majority of people lived in extreme poverty and only a tiny elite enjoyed higher standards of living. Economic growth over the last 200 years completely transformed our world, with poverty falling continuously over the last two centuries.

It is very difficult to compare income or consumption levels over long periods of time because the available goods and services tend to change significantly, to the extent where even completely new goods and services emerge. This point is so significant that it would not be incorrect to claim that every person in the world was extremely poor in the 19th century. Nathan Rothschild was surely the richest man in the world when he died in 1836. But the cause of his death was an infection—a condition that can now be treated with antibiotics sold for less than a couple of cents.

44% of the world population lived in absolute poverty in 1981. Since then, the share of poor people in the world has declined very fast—in fact, faster than ever before in world history. In 32 years, the share of people living in extreme poverty was divided by 4, reaching levels below 11% in 2013. Although the World Bank estimates for 2015 are not yet available, the projections suggest that the incidence of extreme poverty has fallen below 10% for that year.

In 1990, there were 2 billion people living in extreme poverty. With a reduction to 705 million in 2015, this means that on average, every day in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015, 137,000 fewer people were living in extreme poverty. Recently this decline got even faster and in the 7 years from 2008 to 2015 the headline could have been “Number of people in extreme poverty fell by 217,000 since yesterday”. In the recent past we saw the fastest reduction of the number of people in extreme poverty ever.

Global Extreme Poverty

[Newfie]

FWIW I’m with Onlooker. I think the whole GDP and virtually any means of measuring the economy is baseless because the way we make money through false market evaualtions is baseless. It’s nice to win in Monopoly but it counts for jack in the real world.

At some point the money system will reset. Untold trillions will be lost, just like 2008. Only it will be harder to spin the machine back up again, perhaps no doable. That will take a good long while to sort out.

This whole economic game is based on faith and trust, when that fails the game resets. The safest bet is to have paid off real assets.

[onlooker]

Yes Newf. This whole Debt ridden engine is ultimately self defeating. Simply look throughout history at people and Empires overindebted. It has had negative consequences sometimes catastrophic. It is simply postponing the day of reckoning. I realize the logic of tying it to GDP as one would tie it to one's equity and income. But it is not economically sound fundamentally when it reaches levels seen in many OECD countries

[kublikhan]

FWIW I’m with Onlooker. I think the whole GDP and virtually any means of measuring the economy is baseless because the way we make money through false market evaualtions is baseless. It’s nice to win in Monopoly but it counts for jack in the real world.

At some point the money system will reset. Untold trillions will be lost, just like 2008. Only it will be harder to spin the machine back up again, perhaps no doable. That will take a good long while to sort out.

This whole economic game is based on faith and trust, when that fails the game resets. The safest bet is to have paid off real assets.

Then what metric would you prefer to use Newfie? Poverty? That is falling as well. Oil? net oil imports are at record lows. Manufacturing? Breaking records.

Yes Newf. This whole Debt ridden engine is ultimately self defeating. Simply look throughout history at people and Empires overindebted. It has had negative consequences sometimes catastrophic. It is simply postponing the day of reckoning. I realize the logic of tying it to GDP as one would tie it to one's equity and income. But it is not economically sound fundamentally when it reaches levels seen in many OECD countries

The level of debt is falling relative to the size of the economy. Sounds fundamentally economically sound to me.

[Newfie]

What metric would I use? That’s a wonderful question, seriously, and one I’ve not considered.

Whatever it is it should be tied to tangible and palpable quantities, something that has a whiff of reality.

While it may sounds trite the GDH metric has some merit. Gross Domestic Happieness.

But perhaps some basket of indicators such as:
Longevity
Literacy
Type 2 diabeties incidence
Suicide rate
Divorce rate
Child sexual molestation (happens to be in the news)

Just off the top of my head here, if not out of it.

[kublikhan]

Longevity & Global Health are rising:

People are living much longer worldwide than they were two decades ago, as death rates from infectious diseases and cardiovascular disease have fallen, according to a new, first-ever journal publication of country-specific cause-of-death data for 188 countries.

Life expectancy increases globally as death toll falls from major diseases

Global average life expectancy increased by 5.5 years between 2000 and 2016, the fastest increase since the 1960s.

Life expectancy

Literacy is rising:

Literacy levels for the world population have risen drastically in the last couple of centuries. While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 17% of the world population remains illiterate.

The global expansion of literacy has helped reduce inequalities both within and across countries. We can also see that younger generations are progressively better educated than older generations. And it is particularly promising that this intergenerational change is happening especially quickly in the least educated regions of our world.

Literacy

Global happiness is improving:

The World Happiness Report is a well-known source of cross-country data and research on self-reported life satisfaction. The map below shows, country by country, the ‘happiness scores’ published in the World Happiness Report 2017. Self-reported life satisfaction correlates with other measures of well-being—richer and healthier countries tend to have higher average happiness scores.

Changes in happiness over time—Findings from the World Value Survey
As we can see, in the majority of countries the trend is positive: In 49 of the 69 countries with data from two or more surveys, the most recent observation is higher than the earliest. In some cases, the improvement has been very large; in Zimbabwe, for example, the share of people who reported being ‘very happy’ or ‘rather happy’ went from 56.4% in 2004 to 82.1% in 2014.

Decade-long trends have been generally positive for most European countries. In most cases, the share of people who say they are ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with their life has gone up over the full survey period.

Economic growth and happiness
In the charts above we show that there is robust evidence of a strong correlation between income and happiness across and within countries at fixed points in time. Here we want to show that, while less strong, there is also a correlation between income and happiness across time. Or, put differently, as countries get richer, the population tends to report higher average life satisfaction.

Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Falling suicide rates in most countries since the mid-1980s

Divorce rates are falling:

The U.S. divorce rate dropped for the third year in a row, reaching its lowest point in nearly 40 years.

Divorce Rate in U.S. Drops to Nearly 40-Year Low

If you look at the actual metrics for these items instead of kneejerk reactions to a headline or "doom feelies" you have you might find things are better than you thought.

[onlooker]

Well then how are these actual metrics
The US has a lot of money, but it does not look like a developed country

https://qz.com/879092/the-us-doesnt-loo ... d-country/

[noobtube]

A lot of pro-United States, pro-Europe types are going to hate any kind of Gross Domestic Happiness index.

It exposes the fraud that conspicuous consumption means a superior/desirable life.

I would add...

Incidence of drug overdoses.
Incarceration rates/prison cells per capita.
Homelessness rate.
Average household debt/income ratio.
Family formation vs. single mothers.
Military spending per capita.
# of months household can live off savings without income.
Prevalence of chemicals in food supply (% of processed vs unprocessed food).
Likelihood of dental decay.
Incidence of obesity.
Saturation of gambling (lotto, scratch cards, casinos, sports)
Availability to pornography (degeneracy index)
Self-sufficiency of food, energy, clothing (resiliency index)

[kublikhan]

Well then how are these actual metrics
The US has a lot of money, but it does not look like a developed country

https://qz.com/879092/the-us-doesnt-loo ... d-country/

The metric of font onlooker? I see. He who uses the largest font wins. MUHAHAHA! I AM USING THE MAXIMUM SIZE FONT ONLOOKER! PLUS BOLD!!! PLUS UNDERLINED!! PLUS, ALL CAPS!! EVEN RED!!! YOU CAN NEVER BEAT MY METRICS NOW ONLOOKER!!!! SUBMIT!!!

Now if you want to turn off your stupid font metrics and argue on actual points, lets do that. First off all that headline is an exaggeration. The US may be at the bottom of the pack for developed countries but to compare it to a developing country, the US blows them out of the water. For example, here is the percent of people living in poverty in a few countries:

Percent of population (including non-citizens) living under $3.20

Code: Select all

Austria  0.7%
Japan    0.7%
US       1.3%
Italy    1.7%
China    9.5%
Mexico  11.2%
Bolivia 12.6%
India   60.4%
Nigeria 77.6%

List of countries by percentage of population living in poverty

The US metrics come out shittier than Japan and many western European countries. However it is not even in the same ballpark compared to developing nations.

Same deal for global hunger. They don't even bother adding the US to the list of the global hunder index it is in such a different ballpark.

Same deal for health care.

Like I was just telling newfie, you have to look at the actual metrics. Not stop after reading a doomy headline.

[onlooker]

Kub,

[Outcast_Searcher]

A lot of pro-United States, pro-Europe types are going to hate any kind of Gross Domestic Happiness index.

It exposes the fraud that conspicuous consumption means a superior/desirable life.

Excellent point. Given how happy the Scandinavian countries residents' tend to be statistically, despite not having the intense consumer based system the US does, IMO that point doesn't need to be proven.

I would add...

Incidence of drug overdoses.
Incarceration rates/prison cells per capita.
Homelessness rate.
Average household debt/income ratio.
Family formation vs. single mothers.
Military spending per capita.
# of months household can live off savings without income.
Prevalence of chemicals in food supply (% of processed vs unprocessed food).
Likelihood of dental decay.
Incidence of obesity.
Saturation of gambling (lotto, scratch cards, casinos, sports)
Availability to pornography (degeneracy index)
Self-sufficiency of food, energy, clothing (resiliency index)

OTOH, I think your list is highly bogus and reflects your personal feelings or certain religious ideals far too much.

Technology changes are part of that list.

When you say "family", does that mean traditional family with man, woman, 2 kids and a dog? That's living in the past.

Things like gambling, pornography, and even (shudder) disco dancing aren't a "problem" in moderation. (Even if they're a "problem" for your personal beliefs.)

Dental health in the US is generally FAR better than it used to be, as the technology improves. Before fluoridated water, for example, things were far worse. Fancy high fluoride prescription toothpaste is helping me greatly now, despite more gum recession than I'd like (according to my dentist and my checkups).

Obesity is largely due to technology and lifestyle changes. That's FAR from a US only phenomenon.

In a world of specialization, calling it "bad" that people don't make their own clothes or grow their own food is silly. People generally are FAR better off economically NOT needing to worry about such things.

With US household wealth hitting new highs recently, bleating about debt is beating the same old horse, long after it's dead.

...

I could go on, but after a good initial point, your list just repeats the endless doomer mantra, and is a FAIL, as far as making your point. Things aren't perfect, but they're not endlessly getting worse across the board, either. In MANY ways, they're improving.

The main pressures are due to population escalating, same as it ever was. That's a global issue, and it's not caused by a pro-consumption country (or five).