March 2013 Fiscal Snapshot
| Month | Total_Withdrawals_TGA | Pub_Debt_Redemption | Net_Withdrawals_TGA | Tot_NG_CreditMkt_Debt |
| oct | 933 | 589 | 344 | |
| nov | 1035 | 643 | 392 | |
| dec | 947 | 651 | 296 | 44687 |
| jan | 969 | 643 | 326 | |
| feb | 992 | 549 | 443 | |
| mar | 888 | 511 | 377 | |
| Dec-07 | 613 | 382 | 231 | 46999 |
End of month numbers are in for March now. Full month Net Withdrawals from the Treasury General Account ended up at $377B as indicated above in the table, along with the individual trailing 6-month totals.
Also included is some end of 4Q data for both December 2007 and December 2012 for comparison purposes.
At the end of December 2007, which was before the liquidations started in earnest in 1Q 2008, total non-government sector credit outstanding was approximately $47T and current, is at $44.7T, so down a bit over $2T since before the GFC. (Data from Fed's Z.1 Table L.1)
If we assume that the $47T total that was outstanding at year end 2007 was to average straight line amortize over a 15 year term, taking that $47T and dividing by 15 years and then 12 months per year would yield a flow of (47,000 / 15 / 12 = ) $261B per month required to service these non-government liabilities.
But we can see here that the total leading $NFA flow (Net Withdrawals) from the government to the non-government sector was only $231B at this time, which was inadequate to provide for the service of the $47T in non-government credit liabilities outstanding at that time. (Of course assuming the 15 year amortization of the $47T resulting in an average monthly "system nut" of $261B is an accurate assumption... best we can do for now till we get more data which the Fed probably has but is apparently using for toilet paper.)
So "cutting things this close" with fiscal policy, or perhaps worse, inadequately provisioning the non-government with minimum required leading $NFA flows to service non-government sector liabilities, was perhaps to soon foment the liquidation that we eventually witnessed in 2008 starting with Bear-Stearns in Q1 and reaching a crescendo with Lehman Bros. eventually in September, as policymakers stood idly by and watched the events unfold with their moron thumbs firmly inserted you know where while all of this was going on.
Going forward from here, it looks (for now anyway) that recent fiscal policy has been adequate to prevent such a re-occurrence of the 2008 scenario, as recent leading government $NFA injections have been WELL above the pre-GFC levels and total non-government credit is now lower than those previous levels reached in late 2007 by trillions of U.S. dollar balances.
