Debt Levels Archives - Page 8 of 16

February 17, 2017

Seven Signs Australians Are Facing Economic Armageddon

Economics advisor John Adams warns that Australia faces “economic Armageddon” because of “significant structural imbalances” not seen since the lead up to the Great Depression in the 1920s.

Here are his seven signs:

Seven Signs Australians Are Facing Economic Armageddon

Sign 1: Record Australian Household Debt

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, Australia’s household debt as a proportion of disposable income now stands at a record high of 187%.

The two closest episodes were the 1880s and the 1920s, which both preceded the only two economic depressions ever experienced in Australian history in 1890 and 1929.

Sign 2: Record Australian Net Foreign Debt

Australia’s net foreign debt now stands at more than $1 trillion and as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product was at a record high of 63.3% in June 2016.

This makes Australians much more vulnerable to international economic developments such as higher global interest rates, international financial crises or major government or corporate bankruptcies.

Sign 3: Record Low Interest rates

Australia has its lowest official interest rates on record with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s cash rate sitting at 1.5%. The current low rate of interest is not sustainable over the medium term and will inevitably rise.

Australians, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, who have borrowed record amounts of money are very susceptible to higher interest rates.

4: Australian Housing Bubble

The expansion of credit by the Reserve Bank of Australia has been pumped into the Australian housing market over the past 25 years. Credit, which has been directed to Housing as a proportion of Australia’s GDP, has exploded from 21.07% in June 1991 to 95.06% in June 2016.

Over the same period, credit which has been directed at the business sector or to other personal expenses has remained relatively steady as a proportion of GDP.

5: Significant Increases in Global Debt

The General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements stated on 6 February 2017:

“Total debt in the global economy, including public debt, has increased significantly since the end of 2007 … Over the past 16 years, debt of governments, households and non-financial firms has risen by 63% in the United States, the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, 52% in the G20 and 85% in emerging economies. Heavy debt can only leave less room for manoeuvre in responding to future challenges.”

Sign 6: Major International Asset Bubbles

There are significant asset bubbles in bonds, stocks and real estate in major economies such as the United States and China, which has been fueled by the significant increases in global debt.For example, the Shiller PE Index in the United States which measures the price of a company’s stock relative to average earnings over the past 10 years is now at 28.85. This is the third highest recorded behind the Tech Bubble in 1999 and “Black Tuesday” in 1929.

Sign 7: Global Derivatives Bubble

According to the Bank for International Settlements, the value of the over the counter derivatives market (notional amounts outstanding) stood at US$544 trillion.

Much of these derivatives contracts are concentrated on the balance sheets of leading global financial and banking institutions such as Deutsche Bank. The concentration of complex derivative contracts on bank balance sheets poses significant risks to both individual institutions and the global financial system.

Veteran Investor Warren Buffet has repeatedly warned that derivatives are “financial weapons of mass destruction” and could pose as a “potential time bomb”.

Household debt is too high. Rising foreign debt and record low interest rates are fueling a housing bubble. Global debt is too high and rising, while stocks are over-priced. Throw in the global derivatives “bubble” with some truly terrifying numbers just to scare the punters out of their wits.

Nothing new here. Nothing to see. Move along now. The global economy is in good hands…..

Or is it? Aren’t these the same hands that created the current mess we are in?

John Adams is right to warn of the dangers which could have a truly apocalyptic effect, that makes the global financial crisis seem like a mild tremor in comparison.

Some of the risks may be overstated:

The derivatives “bubble” is probably the least of our worries as most of these positions offset each other, giving a net position a lot closer to zero.

Defensive stocks like Consumer Staples and Utilities are over-priced but there still appears to be value in growth stocks. And earnings are growing. So the stock “bubble” is not too alarming.

Global debt is too high but poses no immediate threat except to countries with USD-denominated debt — or Euro-denominated debt in the case of Greece, Italy, etc. — that cannot issue new currency to repay public debt (and inflate their way out of the problem).

But that still leaves four major risks that need to be addressed: Household debt, $1 Trillion foreign debt, record low interest rates and a housing bubble.

From Joe Hildebrand at News.com.au:

Mr Adams called on the RBA to take pre-emptive action by raising interest rates and said the government needed to rein in tax breaks like negative gearing as well as welfare payments.

This, he admitted, would result in “a mild controlled economic recession” but would stave off “uncontrolled devastating depression”.

The problem is that the Australian government appears to be dithering, with one eye on the next election. These are not issues you can “muddle through”.

If not addressed they could turn into the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Source: Apocalyptic warning for Australian families

January 30, 2017

BIS: High household debt kills growth | Macrobusiness

From Leith van Onselen, reproduced with kind permission from Macrobusiness:

Last month I showed how Australia’s ratio of household debt to GDP had hit 123% of GDP – the third highest in the world – according to data released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS):

Martin North also compiled separate data from the BIS, which showed that Australia’s household debt servicing ratio (DSR) is also the third highest in the world:

Despite record low mortgage rates, Australia’s mortgage slaves are still sacrificing a far higher share of their income to pay mortgage interest (let alone principal) than when mortgage rates peaked in 1989-90:

Now the BIS has released a working paper, entitled “The real effects of household debt in the short and long run”, which shows that high household debt (as measured by debt to GDP) has a significant negative long-term impact on consumption and growth. Below are the key findings:

A 1 percentage point increase in the household debt-to-GDP ratio tends to lower growth in the long run by 0.1 percentage point. Our results suggest that the negative long-run effects on consumption tend to intensify as the household debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 60%. For GDP growth, that intensification seems to occur when the ratio exceeds 80%.

Moreover, the negative correlation between household debt and consumption actually strengthens over time, following a surge in household borrowing. What is striking is that the negative correlation coefficient nearly doubles between the first and the fifth year following the increase in household debt.

As shown in the table above, Australia’s household debt-to-GDP ratio was 123% as at June 2016 (higher now) – way above the BIS’ 80% threshold by which GDP growth is adversely impacted.

According to Martin North:

This is explained by massive amounts of borrowing for housing (both owner occupied and investment) whilst unsecured personal debt is not growing. Such high household debt, even with low interest rates sucks spending from the economy, and is a brake on growth. The swelling value of home prices, and paper wealth (as well as growing bank balance sheets) do not really provide the right foundation for long term real sustainable growth.

Another obvious extrapolation is that there could be carnage when mortgage rates eventually rise from current historical lows.

December 19, 2016

China’s Day of Reckoning | The Market Oracle

From Michael Pento:

Therein lies China’s dilemma: Allow the yuan to intractably fall, which will increase capital flight and destroy its asset-bubble economy. Or, raise interest rates to stabilize the currency and risk collapsing asset bubbles that will crumble under the weight of rising debt carrying costs.

China embodies a Keynesian dystopia that results from central planning gone mad. It’s mirage of prosperity should soon be coming to an unpleasant end. The misguided belief any government can print unlimited amounts of money and issue a massive amount of new credit; while providing the conditions that are the antitheses necessary for viable growth, has one significant Achilles heel: eventually, it will destroy your currency. Currency is always the pressure valve that explodes in an economy that has reached the apogee of dysfunction. The Red nation isn’t the only offender on this front, but is certainly one of the worst. Therefore, China and the yuan may have finally run out of time.

Source: Chinese Yuan’s Day of Reckoning :: The Market Oracle ::

December 15, 2016

Will China’s Financial Bust Ever Come?

From Paul Panckhurst and Adrian Leung at Bloomberg:

China’s reading is the nation’s highest on record in the gauge released by the Bank for International Settlements. It’s the single most reliable indicator of looming financial crises, according to the BIS, which found in a 2011 analysis of 36 countries that a majority of banking crises followed readings higher than 10 percent.

The credit-to-gross domestic product “gap” focuses on the amount of credit provided to households and businesses as a share of gross domestic product. It shows when the ratio of credit to GDP is blowing out – suggesting a credit boom and the risk of trouble brewing.

It isn’t advisable to place total reliance on a single indicator, but the rate of credit growth in China is alarming — and unsustainable in the long-term.

Source: Will China’s Financial Bust Ever Come?

October 7, 2016

US private investment dwindles

Private investment is declining as a percentage of GDP. Not a good sign when you consider that a similar decline preceded previous recessions.

Click graph to view full-size image.

Also a concern, when private credit is rising as a percentage of GDP while investment is falling. Crossover of the two lines would indicate that the private sector is borrowing more than it is investing. That is not likely to end well.

September 28, 2016

Government aims for wrong target on debt | MacroBusiness

Macrobusiness quotes LF Economics’ submission to the House of Representatives Budget Savings (Omnibus) Bill 2016:

….It is critical policymakers reign in exponentially-growing private sector debts as this consists of a major source of future financial instability. Australia’s household debt to GDP ratio is the highest in the world, at 125% and rising. Ironically, by ignoring private debt expansion which has generated a housing bubble, public debt will inevitably rise to stimulate the economy to counteract the economic downturn when it bursts.

Source: Government aims for wrong target on debt – MacroBusiness

September 19, 2016

Warning sign of China bank crisis | Business Insider

From Engen Tham, Reuters:

Excessive credit growth in China is signaling an increasing risk of a banking crisis in the next three years, a report from the Bank for International Settlements says.

The credit-to-gross-domestic-product gap, an early warning of financial overheating, hit 30.1 in China in the first quarter of this year, the financial watchdog said in a review of international banking and financial markets published Sunday.

Any level above 10 signals a crisis “occurs in any of the three years ahead,” the BIS said. China’s indicator is way above the second-highest level of 12.1 for Canada and the highest of the countries assessed by the BIS….

From the BIS:

The credit-to-GDP gap captures the build-up of excessive credit in a reduced-form fashion. It is defined as the difference between the credit-to-GDP ratio and its long-run trend, and it has been found to be a useful early warning indicator of financial crises.

In the BIS Table of credit-to-GDP gaps, Hong Kong was second highest at 18.1. Chile (15.7), Singapore (14.8), Thailand (14.5), Saudi Arabia (14.0) and Belgium (12.2) are higher than Canada (12.1). Australia (4.5), USA (-9.9) and UK (-27.0) are far lower. In fact, UK looks like a credit contraction.

Source: Credit-to-GDP warning sign of bank crisis China – Business Insider

September 17, 2016

Niall Ferguson: The “age of debt” has come to an end

Apologies for the sub-titles but this Hard Talk interview has an important message.

September 13, 2016

Rising debt—not a crisis, but a serious problem | Brookings

Testimony by Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow – Economic Studies, Center for Health Policy, before the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress on September 8, 2016:

…..our national debt is high in relation to the size of our economy and will likely rise faster than the economy can grow over the next several decades if budget policies are not changed. Debt held by public is about 74 percent of GDP and likely to rise to about 87 percent in ten years and to keep rising after that.

This rising debt burden is a particularly hard problem for our political system to handle because it is not a crisis. Nothing terrible will happen if we take no action this year or next. Investors here and around the world will continue to lend us all the money we need at low interest rates with touching confidence that they are buying the safest securities money can buy. Rather, the prospect of a rising debt burden is a serious problem that demands sensible management beginning now and continuing for the foreseeable future.

What makes reducing the debt burden so challenging is that we need to tackle two aspects of the debt burden at the same time. We need policies that help grow the GDP faster and slow the growth of debt simultaneously. To grow faster we need a substantial sustained increase in public and private investment aimed at accelerating the growth of productivity and incomes in ways that benefit average workers and provide opportunities for those stuck in low wage jobs. At the same time we need to adjust our tax and entitlement programs to reverse the growth in the ratio of debt to GDP. Winning broad public understanding and support of basic elements of this agenda will require the leadership of the both parties to work together, which would be difficult even in a less polarized atmosphere. The big uncertainty is whether our deeply broken political system is still up to the challenge.

…..There are three necessary elements of a long-run debt reduction plan:

Putting the Social Security program on sustainable track for the long run with some combination higher revenues and reductions in benefits for higher earners.

Gradually adjusting Medicare and Medicaid so that federal health spending is not rising faster than the economy is growing….

Adjusting our complex, inefficient tax system so that we raise more revenue in a more progressive and growth-friendly way and encourage the shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources…..

Source: Rising debt—not a crisis, but a serious problem to be managed | Brookings Institution

September 13, 2016

Credit bubbles and GDP targeting

In 2010 Scott Sumner first proposed that the Fed use GDP targeting rather than targeting inflation, which is prone to measurement error. Since then support for this approach has grown, with Lars Christensen, an economist with the Danish central bank, coining the term Market Monetarism.

Sumner holds that inflation is “measured inaccurately and does not discriminate between demand versus supply shocks” and that “Inflation often changes with a lag… but nominal GDP growth falls very quickly, so it’ll give you a more timely signal….” [Bloomberg]

The ratio of US credit to GDP highlights credit bubbles in the economy. The ratio rises when credit is growing faster than GDP and falls when credit bubbles burst. The graph below compares credit growth/GDP to actual GDP growth (on the right-hand scale). The red line illustrates a proposed GDP target at 5.0% growth.

US Credit Growth & GDP Targeting

What this shows is that the Fed would have adopted tighter monetary policies through most of the 1990s in order to keep GDP growth at the 5% target. That would have avoided the credit spike ahead of the Dotcom crash. More importantly, tighter monetary policy from 2003 to 2006 would have cut the last credit bubble off at the knees — avoiding the debacle we now face, with a massive spike in credit and declining GDP growth.

While poor monetary policy may have caused the problem, correcting those policies is unlikely to rectify it. The genie has escaped from the bottle. The only viable solution now seems to be fiscal policy, with massive infrastructure investment to restore GDP growth. That may seem counter-intuitive as it means fighting fire with fire, increasing public debt in order to remedy ballooning private debt.

Rising public debt is only sustainable if invested in productive infrastructure that yields market-related returns. Not in sports stadiums and public libraries. Difficult as this may be to achieve — with politicians poor history of selecting projects based on their ability to garner votes rather than economic criteria — it is our best bet. What is required is bi-partisan selection of projects and of private partners to construct and maintain the infrastructure. And private partners with enough skin in the game to enforce market discipline. I have discussed this at length in earlier posts.