Total US Government and Private Sector Borrowing Relative to GDP (Quarterly 2003 - 2009/Q4)
(click on graph for a larger version)US Borrowing by Sector (Quarterly 2003 - 2009/Q4)
(click on graph for a larger version)The trend has been somewhat consistent over the last three quarters, with the size of government borrowing almost offsetting the contraction in private sector borrowing, which has been largest (as a percentage of GDP) in the financial sector. However, it seems the financial sector's rate of negative borrowing is shrinking, a trend which bears watching. Home mortgages, consumer credit, and business debt all show continued contraction, but there is no way to know which way their trends will go from here. A lot may depend on the future path of housing prices, which most likely aren't completely done falling. But it's possible there could be some surprises, for example Felix Salmon observes (and EconomPic charts) that consumers haven't actually been paying down credit card debt since Q1 2009 — they've actually continued to add to debt, whether out of necessity or choice — so the overall contraction since then has been all due to charge-offs.
In rough terms, I think these graphs show:
- Fears of "massive" government debt supply driving up interest rates to any dangerous degree are misplaced. Government bonds (plus shorter duration instruments) are replacing disappearing private sector assets. (See further discussion of outlook for treasuries here).
- Government deficit spending (a lot of it via the automatic stabilizers) has helped sustain incomes in the face of defaults and attempted private sector deleveraging, thus preventing a worse outcome to date. Of course, there is a lot that can still go wrong.
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