Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Debt Relatives: Uncle Sam



From yesterday:
... one can look at the Federal debt relative to Non-Federal, and Non-Federal debt relative to the Federal debt. Now this graph is more alive, more active, more interesting:

Graph #3: Debt Relatives

The blue line shows the size of the Federal debt relative to the size of Non-Federal. The red line shows the size of Non-Federal debt relative to the Federal debt. Non-Federal debt is so much larger than Federal that the blue line is forced down to the bottom of the graph and most of its variations are lost.

Yesterday's graph does show the Non-Federal debt pretty well. But it's hard to say much about the Federal debt. If I remove the red line and look only at the blue, we should get a better picture of Federal debt activity.

Graph #1: The Federal Relative

 Hm. Still pretty low, innit. That golden age is such a problem... With the Federal debt up over 1.5 times Non-Federal debt at the end of World War II, the Federal relative had no place to go but down. And down it went, as the private sector grew. Until that 1974 recession. Oh, well.

I want to trim out the early years, to get a better look at the Federal relative since it has been less than 40% the size of total Non-Federal debt. I will crop away the years before 1964 and look at what's left:

Graph #2
Now we have something to look at!

The graph opens with the Federal debt above 45% of Non-Federal, and falling. There is a flat spot around 1967, when there was a "near recession" in the U.S. economy. The Federal debt didn't fall so much that year, and probably everybody else's debt didn't grow so much.
The Federal debt probably grew that year, actually, but you don't know that from a graph of debt relatives.
With the 1974 recession, rising Federal countercyclical spending and falling private-sector growth pushed the trend line up a bit. Then as the economy recovered and growth resumed, the line falls again until the next recession, the double-dip of the early 1980s.

Beginning around 1983, the trend line increases gradually until the end of the decade. Remember the "massive" government spending of the Reagan era? Well, this is it. That spending helped the economy grow, evidently, because Non-Federal debt increased almost as fast as Federal debt. That's what the gradual increase means.

From the end of the 1980s to the mid-1990s, the Federal debt gained on Non-Federal, and the trend line rises rapidly. Then in the second half of the '90s, during the brief spell of good years variously attributed (not by me) to Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, the economy grew pretty well, Non-Federal debt grew much more quickly than the Federal debt, and the trend-line fell at a fast pace.

Things were quiet at the start of the 2000s, with Federal and Non-Fed growing equally for a few years. Then the Federal relative declined, reaching a bottom in 2007.

After that, things got interesting.

7 comments:

jim said...

Hi I've been reading some of your work. It is excellent stuff much of it I have already discovered on my own.

Here is a question for you. Have you written any articles on the current deleveraging of the private sector?

Households, small businesses and the financial sector are all engaged in paying down debt and/or accumulating savings as a result of the financial crisis. debt is now falling in these sectors and is likely to continue to fall for some time to come

The Arthurian said...

Wow, it's nice to hear that. Thanks Jim!

I searched the blog for "deleverage" and only one post turned up!

Then I searched it for "pay down debt" and a lot of posts turned up. I like a lot of those (Skip the one with Bernanke's photo. Not relevant.)

You write, Households, small businesses and the financial sector are all engaged in paying down debt and/or accumulating savings as a result of the financial crisis. Debt is now falling in these sectors and is likely to continue to fall for some time to come.

Yes, and I agree it is likely to continue for quite a while.

I am aware that the economy is *doing* the thing I say policy should do. But policymakers want just the opposite to happen -- they want us to borrow and spend a lot, to make the economy grow. I think policymakers have to use a different way to make the economy grow. When they do that, they will be able to *help* people reduce their debt, and then policy will begin to cooperate with people.

Thanks again.

Art

jim said...

It is my opinion what policymakers want has now become much less relevant than prior to the financial crisis. Today Washington sees policy as a giant steamroller and the policymaker's only concern is to throw their opposition in front of it in a fruitless attempt to slow it down.

The point I was making is accumulation of private debt is what got us to where we are today, but deleveraging is now the real story. Repairing the private sector balance sheet is going to be driving policy for a long time whether Washington likes it or not.

This is what reality looks like to US households in aggregate

http://tinyurl.com/3jtwb9a

That is a link to a FRED chart showing that prior to the financial crisis household debt was never perceived as a problem because household real estate equity was nicely and reliably offsetting the debt. Then unexpectedly households suddenly found themselves $7 trillion in the hole.

You don't need policy to convince households that they need to get out of debt. They are already totally convinced. Their faith in real estate has been shattered and it is not going to be restored any time soon.

Richard Koo sheds some light on this in this presentation:

http://blip.tv/slowtv/the-world-economic-outlook-richard-koo-p1-4843853

As far as to how to create economic growth without accumulating debt. One way is you make things instead of importing them. The trade imbalance is very much related to the accumulation of private debt.

The Arthurian said...

Hi, Jim.

"You don't need policy to convince households that they need to get out of debt. They are already totally convinced."

Sure. But it might go smoother and faster if policy was *helping* people reduce debt, rather than fighting it. Faster would be good.

That graph is a shocker. I want to check it out at FRED this evening.

Jazzbumpa said...

As far as to how to create economic growth without accumulating debt. One way is you make things instead of importing them.

Bravo, Jim - a key point.

OTOH, I don't think households are convinced about anything. They can't borrow because their ratings are shot, credit card interest is unaffordable, and home equity is negative. Their hand is forced.

Art - I was out of town and out of touch for a week, and am slowly catching up - including reading this series, in order. All this debt-relative stuff is interesting in its own right, but what relevance do these ratios have? Basing policy decisions on ratios is a dicey prospect, at best.

I think the root problem is the growth of the financial sector, enabling (or perhaps causing) the shift away from real investment to speculation, which embodies a shift from profit-seeking to rent-seeking.

Cheers!
JzB

The Arthurian said...

Hey, Jazz.
"All this debt-relative stuff is interesting in its own right, but what relevance do these ratios have? Basing policy decisions on ratios is a dicey prospect, at best."

Krugman writes:
there is a surprising lack of models – especially models of monetary and fiscal policy – of economic policy that correspond at all closely to the concerns about debt that dominate practical discourse. Even now, much analysis (including my own) is done in terms of representative-agent models, which by definition can’t deal with the consequences of the fact that some people are debtors while others are creditors.

Which is worse, Jazz, trying to understand the effect debt has on our economy, or trying to ignore it?

I try to understand.

"I think the root problem is the growth of the financial sector, enabling (or perhaps causing) the shift away from real investment to speculation, which embodies a shift from profit-seeking to rent-seeking."

Sure. Debt in the non-federal sector is largely owed to the financial sector, don't you suppose?

I don't call it "rent-seeking". I talk about interest, the factor cost of money. But aren't we talking about the same thing?

Jazzbumpa said...

Which is worse, Jazz, trying to understand the effect debt has on our economy, or trying to ignore it?

I wasn't criticizing. I wonder where this is going? Maybe as I read on the scales will fall from my eyes. But my challenge to you is - if you haven't already done this - justify why the ratio of public to private debt - or it's inverse - is a metric of any significance, and if it leads inexorably to policy recommendations what are they, and how do we get there?

You seem focused on all debt, all the time, and I think that might make you miss other metrics of possibly greater importance.

I don't call it "rent-seeking". I talk about interest, the factor cost of money. But aren't we talking about the same thing?

Perhaps in some broad-brush way, but at a nuance level - not really. The cost of money is a sensible input to profit analysis. Rent seeking sucks the life blood out of the economy. I have come to believe that this is the real root cause of the great stagnation.

Click through the Asymptosis link to Konczal's article. I've only scanned it so far, but I think there is some important and nutritious meat there.

Cheers!
JzB