Worthy Fellows: 2008 Edition

One final graphy post for today. The set contains some slightly encouraging news about debt, but very discouraging news about assets.

Assets are evaporating but debt isn't, as expected.

We can safely say we've never seen wealth destruction like this before.

Real estate is actually increasing its share of Americans' net worth.

That is because financial assets are more volatile than real estate.

I forget what "other" liabilities are, and I'm too tired to look it up right now.

In nominal terms mortgage debt has stopped increasing. That means it is falling in real terms, albeit slowly because inflation is near zero.

GDP Data for 2008

Another belated post full of graphy goodness.

No dramatic changes at the highest level. The trade deficit fell slightly, but the country is still over-consuming.

Even with the trade deficit falling, both exports and imports increased as a percentage of GDP.

Consumption of motor vehicles registered the greatest decline. The share of spending on cars and parts (but not transportation services or fuel) has fallen from 4.1% of GDP in 2002 to 2.7% in 2008.

Residential investment has fallen from a peak of 6.1% in 2005 to 3.4% in 2008. That's a huge change. The increase in non-residential structure investment over the same period made up for half of the fall in residential. But the sector is wildly over-supplied and thus spending is set to contract.

Slavery for the Free: 2008 Edition

I'm a wee bit behind in posting this, but nonetheless here is the latest debt data.

Debt accumulation marched on, at least through December of last year.

Taking out intergovernmental debt doesn't change the overall picture.

Hooray! Consumers almost stopped accumulating debt last year. Too bad it took a major recession to force the change.

Here we see the spike in publicly-held federal debt that started last year. This year's increase will dwarf all previous years.

Under the Hood: May 2009 Edition

Positive second derivative! Ok, I didn't check that, but at least for Ford and GM the rate of decline seems to be lessening. Toyota, however, got hammered again.

The bottom has definitely been found.

Lincoln wins the least bad brand performance title this month by actually increasing sales. Izuzu seems to have finally worked off its US inventory.

Subaru remains at the top here.

New graph! Entirely unsurprising contents! (Except July 2005 - what happened there? Was that an employee pricing month?)

Another new graph. This one doesn't tell me much.

My Name In Lights

Unfortunately, I am now known across the blogosphere for producing really bad graphs.

Maybe I should work on that.

Timmeh Tuh: Bankster Boogaloo

I finally got around to reading the huge profile of Geithner in the NYT. It's discouraging. We cannot restore the financial system to its 2007 or 2005 state; it needs a complete overhaul and a new outlook. And now I am quite confident reform efforts will amount to squat.

Maybe we'll see better results on health care.

Situation Normal

It looks like auto sales have found a floor between 9 million and 10 million SAAR. Now the question is what will become the new normal. 12 million? 15 million? 10 million? I think we'll see 10 million this year, 12 million in 2011, and 14-15 million for a few years after that. Recently built cars (after 1995 or so) last longer and sales from 1999 to 2007 were artificially high due to the internet and then the credit bubbles. That means there is a glut of "car capacity" in the country.

My prediction about Chrysler has been right-ish so far (my timing was off). For the workers' and retirees' sake I hope Fiat succeeds at leading the new venture. But despite Marchione's record, I am not optimistic. And there has been no news about whether the bankruptcy period will be short, which it needs to be.

That's some serious cliff diving! (It's also non-zero-based, but it always is.)