CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Monday, February 16, 2009
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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52 Comments:
You're making a false comparison Prof. The problem now is a massive world-wide deflation and an international banking system that is insolvent and completely crippled.
The nature of the bust is different and is much more similar to Japan in the early 90s or the Great Depression.
Remember that Japan is still suffering from its deflationary recession almost 20 years later.
These things can play out over a very long time.
We've only just begun.
Did you see Henry Kaufman in the Journal on Saturday, The Great Interest Rate Wave? Early 1980s and now had one thing in common - they both represented extremes. (Ditto 1946 - the start of the great wave - with rates identical to now, but conditions diametrically opposite.)
Here's my key economic indicator:
Proportion of income spent on housing:
1980 12% (a room in a house and shared bath with one other person)
Now: 65% (a room in a house and shared bath with four other people)
The early 1980s was a much better situation to be in. The economy was weak because interest rates were sky high, but they had plenty of room to fall from there.
Where do we go from here?
It's amazing no matter how much proof you show someone is making false comparisons, he continues to make false comparisons.
As I recall the main reason for the record-high 1980 inflation was Paul Volcker, who tamed inflation and paved the way for the sunshine of the early Reagan years. Do you regret the sunshine of the early Reagan years?
In the early '80s, inflation was high, because there was too much money chasing too few goods, and interest rates were high, because there was so little capital. It's the complete opposite today.
Of course, global economic growth, capital creation, and massive foreign capital inflows will slow. So, it'll be a paradox U.S. output will be higher in the 2010s, than the 2000s, while U.S. living standards rise at a slower rate.
poor boomer,
Do you have a source for that data? And I'm not sure what your point is. What is the right percentage of income to spend on housing? Isn't that, to some degree, an individual choice?
It is, of course, bad to use myself as a statistically representative sample, but I am spending nowhere near that level of my income on housing, even as a college student. Maybe housing prices are cheaper here (in Arizona; seems unlikely)? Or housing is lower quality than the average?
So, it makes no sense why someone would make false comparisons of the U.S. economy today to Japan in the early '90s or the Great Depression after being shown those comparisons are false.
DKH, check the data. CPI rent is based on 1982 at 100. CPI rent currently is around 260, so 2-3x '80s prices. The 60th percentile household income breakpoint in 1982 was at $16k. It currently is around $34k, about 2x. So if you're a working stiff household, your rent has gone up relative to income, by roughly 20%.
PT, after reading his comment on dental insurance and pliers, I am beginning to believe MJP has a personality disorder.
DKH said:
Do you have a source for that data? And I'm not sure what your point is. What is the right percentage of income to spend on housing? Isn't that, to some degree, an individual choice?
Actually the example I posted is my own. And it certainly is not a representative sample, but it is the sample with which I must live.
It **WAS** a lot better in the early 1980s.
The household debt service ratio was less than 11% in the early 1980s. Today it is 14%.
Homeowners' equity in the early 1980s was 70%. Today it is less than 45%.
Household personal savings rate in the early 1980s was 11%. Today it is 3.5%.
To say that the early 80's were better because of high interest rates, and therefore plenty of room to decline, makes as much sense to me as telling someone who is 200 lbs. overweight, he is in better shape than the slightly underweight fellow because look at how much he can lose.
I am beginning to believe MJP has a personality disorder.
I am beginning to believe that you suffer from a civility disorder. Focus on the issues and spare me the cheap shots.
To say that the early 80's were better because of high interest rates, and therefore plenty of room to decline, makes as much sense to me as telling someone who is 200 lbs. overweight, he is in better shape than the slightly underweight fellow because look at how much he can lose.
Well argued, Ralph.
excellent stuff Mark!
High prices and high interest rates cause people to spend less and save more. To say the economy was better in the early '80s, because there were too few goods and too little capital ignores the real economy. Ultimately, you want to maximize the quantity and quality of output per capita at a sustainable rate.
You miss one big point: We are only 1 year into this mess. Give the present crisis a few more years, and your baseline will be 1933, not 1980.
Time wounds all heels
Some are better off, some are worse off
the "economy" is a convenient fiction
We are, each of us, about 30years closer to our death date than we were 30 years ago,
except for those of us who have already gone to our reward
Demographics don't support a Great Depression. A long-wave bust, similar to the 1870s, 1930s, and 1970s may begin when the last of the Baby-Boomers (born between 1946-64) reach 65 in 2029. Also, it may be difficult to have an economic bust without an economic boom. Monetary Trends-Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis on page 10 has a chart that shows U.S. actual output was below potential output throughout the 2000s.
To say that the early 80's were better because of high interest rates, and therefore plenty of room to decline, makes as much sense to me as telling someone who is 200 lbs. overweight, he is in better shape than the slightly underweight fellow because look at how much he can lose.
The point is this. Interest rates are a big lever used to speed up and slow down the economy. They were high in the 1980's because inflation was high (trying to slow down the economy). We crank them low to pull the economy out of deflation. Right now the lever is all the way to the bottom and needs to go lower but it can't unless you are willing to pay the bank to take your money. So in that sense we're in bigger trouble now than we were in the 1980's because the lever could go in both directions as needed but now it can't.
This is also why this whole blog post is a little silly. Comparing interest rates in an inflationary period agains a deflationary period and saying on that basis it's not so bad doesn't really make much sense.
What makes no sense is taking all the key economic indicators of whether or not we're prosperous and saying they don't count in this situation because they don't agree with your point of view.
These arguments are ridiculous, You can't say that your economic indicators are the ones that show how bad it is, and not the one agreed on well before the current recession just because you believe we really are as bad as the media says. Its the same as telling a homeless person he's better off than you because your definition of being well off is whether or not you worry about a mortgage payment.
If this really is the second Great Depression, where are the mass exodus to California, where are the stock brokers leaping from windows, where are the banks that refuse to give you your money because they don't have it? Where are the hoover towns?
Indeed. I lived through the eighties and it was worse than today. Thank God we will never elect another Carter. Oh, wait...
PeakTrader said:
High prices and high interest rates cause people to spend less and save more.
High prices and high interest rates cause poor people to spend more and save less.
Interest rates actually led to the 'boom' of the mid 80s (the early 80s were still relatively recessionary, but recovering from a much worse recession). You borrow money to pay 30% of your income on a house, then inflation increases your pay over the next five years by 40%... now you're paying only 20% of your income to housing and have a lot more income to spend on other items, allowing other people to be employed making those items.
The numbers we should be looking at is income rates vs. housing costs. Housing costs have went up around 30% in the last ten years, while the median income has only went up by 5%. Less disposable income, greater debt/income ratio leads to a very bad recession. If we don't start inflating soon, this could be a very rough decade (2008-2017), cushioned only by ridiculous levels of government spending. So we'll probably only hit 10-12% unemployment for 3-5 years instead of the 15-20% that we could have reached.
Poor Boomer, so, when the price of a product rises, you're more likely to buy that product, rather than substitute a cheaper product, or save at a higher rate. Also, of course, you're more likely to borrow when interest rates rise, e.g. to buy that product you believe is too expensive.
solinear,
Doesn't one also also have to consider the effect of interest rates on mortgage payments. Historically, mortgage rates have been around 5-6% so 18.5% on mortgages would result in mortgage payments tripling.
Many businesses had loans with 20% interest. High interest rates effectively divert money from investment. Wouldn't that tend to produce a deadweight on the economy rather than spur growth as you suggest?
solinear said:
You borrow money to pay 30% of your income on a house, then inflation increases your pay over the next five years by 40%... now you're paying only 20% of your income to housing and have a lot more income to spend on other items, allowing other people to be employed making those items.
DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!
This is why, on average, homeowners pay 15-20 percent of their income on housing, while renters on average pay twice that.
Is this a great country or what?
PeakTrader said:
Poor Boomer, so, when the price of a product rises, you're more likely to buy that product, rather than substitute a cheaper product, or save at a higher rate. Also, of course, you're more likely to borrow when interest rates rise, e.g. to buy that product you believe is too expensive.
It appears that you have made two reasonable but - in the instant case - erroneous assumptions, namely that I have not already substituted (and have run out of cheaper substitutes), and that I have available credit with which to borrow.
After fixed expenses for food, health insurance, and student loan payment, I live on approx $75 per month, plus food stamps.
My idea of discretionary spending is, do I eat boxed mac-and-cheese tomorrow or rice and beans? Having run out of cheaper substitutes to which to switch, higher prices mean I spend more and save less.
So Boomer, why don't you buy a house??
> It could be a lot worse. It **WAS** a lot worse in the early 1980s.
Not exactly -- back then, we had Reagan as PotUS.
Now we have Jimmy Carter Redux.
I suspect the proper way to extend the current situation is to look at what happened from 1976-1980, using current numbers in place of those of 1976.
That's not going to exactly mirror what happens, but it should rhyme with it.
> Now: 65% (a room in a house and shared bath with four other people)
Where, in f***ing NEW YORK CITY?
In a college DORM?
Where the hell are you living that you actually imagine that your idiotic description actually represents even VAGUELY "standard" situations?
Even if it dishonestly reflected a family of four -- two adults, two children -- *most* houses now have two or more full baths, and usually another half-bath.
Virtually every single person I've known in the last 20 years has had a bathroom and a bedroom all to themselves, or been a part of a family unit which had a bath and a bed for each adult and child paired.
Here's Boomer's key economic indicator: How long he's had his head stuck up his ass, and how rich a society has to be to allow him to continue to operate indefinitly as a functionless human being in this state.
> As I recall the main reason for the record-high 1980 inflation
As noted elsewhere, Buce, you don't have a clue. Volcker didn't CAUSE the numbers in question, he got handed the conditions which produced them, and solved the problem over time -- usually by ignoring idiots who were telling him that he was completely wrong, and that more Keynesian crap was the only hope.
> It **WAS** a lot better in the early 1980s.
>The household debt service ratio was less than 11% in the early 1980s. Today it is 14%.
> Homeowners' equity in the early 1980s was 70%. Today it is less than 45%.
> Household personal savings rate in the early 1980s was 11%. Today it is 3.5%.
LOL, funny, only a few years ago, everyone owning their own home was supposed to be a "good" thing.
Now, all of a sudden, it's awful?!?!??
All the numbers you cite tie to home ownership -- yes, even the home ownership-vs-personal-savings.
Because of its unique nature as an asset, home ownership is tied to personal savings, since money paid against the mortgage allows for later use in much the same way as savings would, by using the equity gained.
Not exactly the same, but when you've had the Dems spending the last 15 years "ramming" universal home ownership down everyone's throats as a matter of Fedeeral policy -- especially at prices and conditions which effectively put it into competition with personal savings, is it any surprise personal savings is vastly down?
It used to be you would save money until you could make a down payment. When you don't need a down payment to buy a house, people will instead be making payments onto their house that would have been going into savings towards that end. And, since "everyone" gets a house, we don't have a lot of different people saving money at different rates and reaching that minimum DP at different times, causing the saving rate to be level and higher than it currently is.
Oh, and I'd suspect comparing savings then with savings now to be specious, since there are any number of debt instruments available which can supplant direct savings of the sort being measured. I've had a note for US$3000 earning me 12% for the last 18 months. It's not "FDIC" insured, but it's defacto as safe as a savings account, and getting me much better interest than any CD. As soon as I can get some more money, I plan to get another one at similarly good interest.
> So if you're a working stiff household, your rent has gone up relative to income, by roughly 20%.
Except that this ignores, and is, in fact, directly caused by, the fact that more people own homes than ever before.
In actual fact, probably far fewer people are paying that "20% more" that you're whining about, than ever before, by far.
I'm not going to dig up exact statistics proving this, I think it's inherently obvious from ownership statistics as percentage of families and single individual head-of-households. Someone else is free to do so, by all means.
Also, your argument is probably specious by now, since the boom-induced overproduction of homes has now created a glut in both areas, and so home prices as well as rental prices are dropping steadily across the board, and even more so in those areas where prices have been driven much higher by bubble demand. So if the number you cite isn't already incorrect, it soon will be.
> My idea of discretionary spending is, do I eat boxed mac-and-cheese tomorrow or rice and beans?
1) What the hell useless thing did you get your degree in that you can't find a job that pays you well enough to eat better than "mac and cheese"?
2) If you actually are having a problem getting jobs in your area, then there is one obvious solution: move. Chances are, you can find a job somewhere in the USA once you remove that constraint, which is all too often ignored in its central relevance regarding complaints about one's life situation, especially once one controls for blatantly stupid things like "BS Degree in English".
Ralph Short said:
So Boomer, why don't you buy a house??
This is the sort of comment that could inspire a rant, but I'll try to stay calm.
All I can say (without starting a rant) is that I have not yet found a way to buy one.
I already have a business model to turn homeownership into a moneymaking proposition - currently I am on the wrong side of this business model - but can't save up a down payment as long as rent condsumes 65 percent of my income.
PeakTrader said:
Here's Boomer's key economic indicator: How long he's had his head stuck up his ass, and how rich a society has to be to allow him to continue to operate indefinitly as a functionless human being in this state.
Aw contraire, my high productivity produces substantial wealth for my landlord and my employer.
They certainly enjoy the money I generate for their bottom lines.
OBloodyHell said:
Because of its unique nature as an asset, home ownership is tied to personal savings, since money paid against the mortgage allows for later use in much the same way as savings would, by using the equity gained.
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if hamburger flippers could own assets?
Apologies to PeakTrader, to whom I inadvertently attributed a comment by OBloodyHell.
OBloodyHell said:
Because of its unique nature as an asset, home ownership is tied to personal savings, since money paid against the mortgage allows for later use in much the same way as savings would, by using the equity gained.
Was there a No Hamburger Flipper Left Behind program I missed?
DKH said:
Do you have a source for that data? And I'm not sure what your point is. What is the right percentage of income to spend on housing? Isn't that, to some degree, an individual choice?
Historically, lenders and landlords have set standards forthe "right percentage of income to spend on housing."
Many landlords will not rent to a person for whom the rent would exceed one-third (33.33 percent) of their income; some set 25 percent as their upper limit.
Federal policy sets 30 percent of income as the right percentage for households receiving rent subsidies.
Historically - before the housing bubble - lenders often did not extend mortgages in cases where the mortgage payment would be more than 28 percent of income.
As for individual choice, it IS a choice for most homeowners, but for a large proportion of renters, it's not a choice.
A survey in my area five years ago - before rents here soared on the last three years - estimated that most local renters are paying at least half their income for housing.
As I said earlier, I am paying 65 percent of my income for housing.
And not by choice.
OBloodyHell:
I can't even afford to move to a cheaper room across town, how can I afford to move to a different part of the country?
I got a poli sci degree. It seemed good for its intended purpose, which was to go to law school. (By the time I graduated, I couldn't afford law school and was unwilling to borrow up to my eyeballs after watching friends pass the bar exam and take menial jobs to repay their student loans.) I also had a minor in comp sci but the emerging PC rendered my mainframe skils obsolete.
People tell me I've utterly blown any shot at a career or a good job, and that there isn't really anything I can do now to acquire either one. (i.e. moving won't help.)
I think my only hope is in self-employment but don't know how to get started without money.
Question:
To what extent was the recent (bubble-era) rise in homeownership attributable to boomers inheriting homes and cash?
I'm guessing that it wasn't huge but not trivial either.
Interesting discussion about what the significance of Mark's comparison is, but boomer, you've got to move, you bonehead. You can't afford it. Boomer - sounds like you've given up hope. Never, ever, ever....give up hope. And don't rely on or ask for handouts. If you do that, then you're just a bum.
poor boomer
.....Sounds like YOU made some poor CHOICES. One...You say you are paying back a student loan. Are you not working in your CHOSEN profession now and did you not ALLOW for those student loan payments in YOUR self made career plan? Did you choose a career in which you could find ample employment with salaries large enough to have more than beans for breakfast?
Also, you mention health insurance. Do you REALLY NEED health insurance at THIS time in your life? Maybe you are elderly? Prone to health probs? If you are a college student...you probably don't "need" it yet.
I'm 53 and am a general contractor that CAREFULLY works in and around dangerous areas. I don't have health care insurance because I CAN'T AFFORD IT IN MY BUDGET. Don't get me wrong, I WISH that I had it, but am NOT going to run to mommy GOVT. to get it " free"...NOTHING is EVER...free.
Point is that YES I could get hurt TODAY and desperately WANT health insurance. I have to WEIGH my choices. I am relatively healthy and try to be very careful at work.
I CAN say that I have saved TENS of thousands ( if not more) over the years by NOT having health insurance. If I am eating beans and rice, I personally am going to think about DROPPING the insurances that I may not REALLY NEED at certain times in my life,
( EVEN house insurance ) Yes , I know, I sound like some kind of revolutionary "caveman" right? Hey, think what you want. Remember, man lived well enough for most of the many thousands of years he's been on the planet WITHOUT insurances.
In any case.....YOU CHOOSE to pay it so I hope that you are not now "whining" in any way??
I won't be back to this sight again so don't bother with the sarcasms...I won't see them.
By the way...you do have enough disposable income to AFFORD cable internet I take it? Wonder what else you may have that you don't "need" that you could "dump" from your current budget? Oh...I'm also an Oklahoman. ( That hates the liberal university ..."OU".)
everybody is aware of it and that is the most scary part of having economic crisis...
American_Prodigy_1000 said:
Sounds like YOU made some poor CHOICES. One...You say you are paying back a student loan. Are you not working in your CHOSEN profession now and did you not ALLOW for those student loan payments in YOUR self made career plan?
My plan was to go to law school, pass the bar exam, get a law license, and practice law.
I couldn't afford law school - it had become much more expensive while I was an undergraduate - and my poli sci degree wasn't useful, especially in the 1981 Rust Belt economy.
So I took the job I could get, doing some specialized transcription for slightly above minimum wage. (There are very few, if any, jobs like it today; the handwritten records I worked with then are computerized today.) Deferred student loan payment as long as possible. Made student loan payments until the fourth of five rent increases in five years, at which time I defaulted.
Did that for 20 years, had a health collapse (two month hospitalization, was unable to work for a year), family elsewhere took me in until I could work again. Left hospital with an expensive chronic condition; I really do need health insurance.
Went to work earning minimum wage in a convenience store. (No advancement opportunities expected for years.)
Now I am over 50, and I have neither marketable skills nor career-related experience. Also I have a student loan garnishment and can't afford to go back to school.
I rent an overpriced room in a crowded house and share a wall with a hacking nicotine addict who stresses me out and never leaves the house (except to go outside to smoke). I can't move to a cheaper and less crowded place because I can't save up any money because I'm paying 65 percent of my income for rent, and I live on $75 plus food stamps after health insurance and the student loan garnishment.
So right now I'm feeling rather sorry for myself.
p.s. if i were not paying for health insurance, i would have some enormous medical bills that i would never be able to pay. think of it as a necessary expense - i'd have to pay one way or another.
boomer,
you stupid bastard and all of you crunchy 60's hippy losers who can't grasp the big picture. let me make it simple, as it needs to be, stay the hell away from my kids, keep off my property, what is mine is not yours. you dead beats! go out and earn a living. i will give money to whom I choose. that is what liberty is all about, not taking away freedoms and instilling unconstitutional laws. by the way "basement boomer", republicans donate more time and money to charities than leftists give to their own family members. my guess is that you are just a greedy low life leach that will never be satisfied... ya i know, the truth hurts. final thought, gun contoll is just a matter of aim. MARK LEVIN IS THE GREAT AMERICAN HERO!
super right ranted:
you stupid bastard and all of you crunchy 60's hippy losers who can't grasp the big picture. let me make it simple, as it needs to be, stay the hell away from my kids, keep off my property, what is mine is not yours. you dead beats! go out and earn a living...
PPP I've never done drugs or lived a "hippy" lifestyle, so I have no idea where your rant is coming from.
I've worked since I was a ten-year-old entrepreneur, shoveling snow around town to earn money. I had my first paper route when I was twelve, and had saved up the equivalent of $20K by the time I graduated high school.
I take pride in my lifetime of hard work for low pay, so I don't know where your "greedy low life leach" (sic) idea originates.
I was newly married in this early 80's time period. I remember going to a seminar where everyone thought that interest rates would never go below 12% again. The point is that we are NOT even close to the Great Depression, and it is not the worst economy since then except that Obot is working on a self-fulfilling prophecy.
People wearied of Carter and his finger-pointing mommy-isms about how we Americans weren't working hard enough, weren't grateful enough, and were just going to have to get accustomed to being miserable.
Now we have Carter squared in Obot. I predict he will be roundly and soundly hated and in the not too distant future. It would be extremely difficult to be a worse chief exec than Wilson, but Obot just might get 'r done.
One last thought: I was living in central Nebraska in the 80's when the breadbasket went through a very bad farm depression. Luckily for us, we live in "fly over" country, and no one from DC gave a rat's rear end about us so no one came to our rescue. Therefore, we eventually worked through it and today we are in pretty good shape here compared to the rest of the country. Too bad the rest of you won't benefit from being self-reliant and largely unappreciated. I happen to believe that those two traits were our salvation back then--and now.
Bottom line: take no money from the zookeeper lest you get relegated to a cage.
From an economic students point of view we should let the economy sink into a state in which it is able to cut away the excesses. Bailouts and stimulus's should be halted in order for the natural order in the economy to right itself. This so called depression is know where as close to the 1980's depression. The US stock market is recognizing the waste in the stimulus and is dealing with it accordingly. AS A CITIZEN OF AMERICA I WILL BE PAYING THE TAXES IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THE DEFICIT. The general populace should realize that a majority of the money used in bailouts will come from future generations such as myself.
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