for the year ending with 2007 Q4, household net worth increased by 3.4% or $1.9 trillion. if one looks only at financial net worth (throwing out houses as assets but counting the mortgages) the increase was over 4%. the us has over $31 trillion in financial savings, more than the rest of the world combined. (latest available data from a recent report by david malpass).
of all government statistics, the measurement of the savings rate is probably the worst. any time one borrows money to buy an asset the loan counts and the asset does not.
the totals conceal the distribution, of course. there is no "consumer" but rather a distribution of consumers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment