Excerptcize

Felix Salmon, economics blogger for Reuters had this post up a few days ago:

Mike Mandel has four nominees for his “Economic Statistic of the Decade” award, including home prices (obvs), Chinese growth, and global trade. But the most startling one, for me, is US household borrowing:

I like the time frame that Mike has chosen here, since it shows not only the huge increase in borrowing during the credit boom and the stomach-churning plunge thereafter, but also, for much of the 1990s, what “normal” should look like.

Mike notes that the data for this chart includes domestic hedge funds, so it shouldn’t be taken entirely at face value. But it’s the best visual representation I’ve seen of the credit boom and bust.

There’s also a nice riposte in comments to someone whining about the current decade not being over yet:

There is one full year remaining in the decade that consists of the first ten years of the 21st century. There are no more years remaining in the decade that consists of the ten years beginning with 2-0-0. Each of them is “the current decade” (as is the decade that consists of the years 2007 through 2016). It turns out that the overwhelming majority of the population finds it most appealing to review the history of a decade defined as the set of years with the same three initial digits, and they are in no way wrong to do so.

Exactly. Enjoy this new decade. And borrow sensibly! I’ll see if I can’t find the same data for Canadian households. I imagine it is only somewhat more prudent…

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