Word: debt
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That figure is now starting to fall. At the end of 2008, the debt-to-income ratio was down to 130%, and new numbers from the Federal Reserve on Thursday are sure to show another drop...
...things are driving that figure down. First, people are paying off debt - which goes hand in hand with their not spending money on as many new things. In April, outstanding consumer credit - which includes credit cards, auto loans and tuition-financing but not mortgages - fell by $15.7 billion to $2.52 trillion, an annualized drop of 7.4% and the second largest dollar drop on record, after March's $16.6 billion decline. Numbers from April show that people are now saving 5.7% of their disposable income, the highest rate in 14 years. Second, people are shirking their obligations. According to the Mortgage...
...Some days it seems there's good news everywhere: home sales ticking up, slower job losses, the Dow turning positive for the year. But all that misses a looming reality. American consumers, whose overspending largely got us into this mess, are still under massive pressure, owing to the record debt they racked up during the boom years. People are unwinding those burdensome obligations - from mortgages to car loans to credit-card debt - as fast as they can, but the process is sure to take years, and until it is complete, the economy can't fully bounce back. "Even though...
...understand the Great Consumer Retrenchment is to look at the amount of debt the typical household carries as a percentage of its disposable income. The ratio of debt to income increased from about 35% in the early 1950s to about 65% by the mid-1960s, where it more or less stayed until the late 1980s. That's when debt started its epic rise, hitting 100% of income in 2001 and going all the way up to 133% in 2007. (Read "Five Reasons for Economic Optimism...
...That rise in indebtedness is now giving way to what looks to be a long slide. At least, it had better be; if consumers start piling on debt again, we'll just have another, bigger credit crisis in a few years. But if they keep increasing their savings rate and reducing their debt loads, that's bad news for corporate profits, not just bank profits. Anybody who makes things that in recent years were bought on credit, from houses to washing machines to cars, is likely to be affected. So are stock prices. "Higher borrowing produces both higher profits...