Monday, April 9, 2012

Huge slowdown in consumer credit growth


Consumer credit growth experienced its sharpest peak-to-trough contraction in at least four years suggesting that the Oct thru Jan consumption binge that factored into very good economic numbers is over. Commercial bank lending also appears to be stalling out. And of course, government spending is down sharply year-over-year: $400 bln lower versus the same time last year according to the most recent Treasury data.
It's all about money...if the government is cutting back on spending and private credit growth is fading, the economy is toast.

3 comments:

Dan Lynch said...

Good information, and hardly surprising, though personally I'm not a fan of the M-o-M and Y-o-Y charts, would rather see it charted as a straight value.

Tom Hickey said...

More charts at Mish: The Real Consumer Credit Story: Virtually No Recovery in Revolving Credit, No Recovery in Non-Revolving Credit

Revolving and non-revolving credit in the tank. The bulk of the rise in credit has come from student loans, which is an economic disadvantage.

Major_Freedom said...

It's all about money...if the government is cutting back on spending and private credit growth is fading, the economy is toast.

The economy was toasted because of the prior money infusion that wrecked economic calculation and altered the real economy into requiring accelerating money to sustain it.

Remember back in 2008-2009, the good old days, when $1 trillion global liquidity infusion prevented the world from entering a great depression? Well, then there was a $3 trillion global liquidity infusion. It goosed the market and postponed the day of reckoning by only 100 days or so.

I don't know about you, but I notice a pattern that to sustain nominal "spending", more and more money is needed. The end point of this does not bode well.