zur Lage der US-amerikanischen Haushalte

verfasst von Cosa, 21.07.2003, 09:34

-->moin,

einen guten Einblick in die privaten US-Haushalte gewährt folgender Artikel von Paul Kasriel, Northerntrust:

Begging The Chairman’s Pardon - Household Balance Sheets Are Improving?
July 17, 2003


In his prepared comments to the House and Senate this week, Fed Chairman Greenspan said:

The prospects for a resumption of strong economic growth have been enhanced by steps taken in the private sector over the past couple of years to restructure and strengthen balance sheets. These changes, assisted by improved prices in asset markets, have left households and businesses better positioned than they were earlier to boost outlays as their wariness about the economic environment abates.

Nowhere has this process of balance sheet adjustment been more evident than in the household sector.

Now, Chairman Greenspan evidently has access to second quarter flow-of-funds data that the rest of us mere mortals do not. And with the rise in the stock market in the second quarter, household net worth undoubtedly increased, as the chairman stated: “Overall, during the first half of 2003, the net worth of households is estimated to have risen 4-1/2 percent--somewhat faster than the rise in nominal disposable personal income." <strong>Based on Fed-published data through the first quarter of this year, however, it would be a stretch to say that the prospects for a resumption of strong economic growth have been enhanced by steps taken in the household sector over the past couple of years to restructure and strengthen balance sheets.</strong>





Let’s start with the balance sheet itself. Specifically, let’s look at what has happened to the ratio of debt-to-assets for the household sector. Chart 1 shows that this ratio reached a new post-WWII high in the first quarter of this year. In past recessions (recessions are designated by the shaded areas in the graph), this debt-to-asset ratio has moved lower and stabilized for a few quarters after recessions. That is, recessions typically are periods when households actually do repair their balance sheets. But not so in the most recent recession. This ratio has been in a steady climb since 2000.



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Chairman Greenspan told us that households have replacing relatively expensive debt with cheaper debt, thereby preparing them to spend like a banshee going forward. The Fed’s debt-service burden data relate to this point. Chart 3 shows that, despite extremely low mortgage rates, the household debt-service burden in the first quarter of 13.99% was only 41 basis point below the record of 14.40% set in the fourth quarter of 2001. So, while lower interest rates have been unburdening households, households’ insatiable desire to take on net new debt has largely offset the effect of lower interest rates. To paraphrase an old joke, households have been making it up on volume.



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Households are very illiquid. Chart 5 shows that the ratio of households’ thrift deposits (including money market mutual fund shares)-to-total debt in the first quarter was just a tick up its post-WWII low. Is this illiquidity a positive example of balance sheet restructuring?



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Chairman Greenspan noted that only 15% of the 4-1/2% first-half increase in household net worth came from saving. Increased market value of assets is what accounted for the bulk of this increase in net worth. So, household net worth is rising because of Fed-induced asset appreciation rather than old-fashioned thrift. Sound familiar?





<strong>In sum, households have not meaningfully repaired their balance sheets since the onset of the last recession. Households are not “better positioned than they were earlier to boost outlays as their wariness about the economic environment abates.” If anything, they are more poorly positioned to do so. The recently-enacted income tax cuts will give a boost to disposable personal income, all else the same. And this will allow households to increase their saving without cutting back on their spending. But if households use their tax cuts just to increase their spending, then their balance sheets will deteriorate further. Unless household debt-to-asset ratios and debt-service burdens are significantly reduced, then a rise in interest rates will greatly limit households’ ability to take on more debt in order to step up their spending. Credit card delinquency and mortgage foreclosure rates are at record highs in this environment of very low interest rates. What will happen to household creditworthiness if rates were to rise?</strong>

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Es hängt unzweifelhaft an den Zinsen, dem Immobilienmarkt wie auch der weiteren Verschuldungsbereitschaft der US-Haushalte.

Gruss
Cosa

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gesamter Thread:

• zur Lage der US-amerikanischen Haushalte - Cosa, 21.07.2003, 09:34
  • was war 1985??? - nasdaq, 21.07.2003, 12:17
    • Re: was war 1985??? - dottore, 23.07.2003, 13:46
  • Re: Danke für Kasriel - Deine Einschätzung teile ich: - dottore, 23.07.2003, 13:39