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Home / Mike Norman Economics / Household debt is a problem- But its one our politicians don’t want to talk about — Iwan Doherty

Household debt is a problem- But its one our politicians don’t want to talk about — Iwan Doherty

Summary:
This dramatic rise is most likely caused by austerity and the government’s reduction of the deficit, though the post referendum stagnating wages and rise in inflation has also spurred on the level of debt. The relation with public and private debt is one that is of increasing interest to Post-Keynesian economists especially those who put their faith in Modern Monetary Theory. MMT would suggest the dropping government deficit is pushing the rest of us into deficit but the way the government has gone about this may be a bigger reason for the substantial rise in debt. Whatever the cause the rising debt has economic repercussions. Consumer spending is a vital part of our economy and while debt can help fuel spending in our economy, predictably those with higher debt also limit their

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This dramatic rise is most likely caused by austerity and the government’s reduction of the deficit, though the post referendum stagnating wages and rise in inflation has also spurred on the level of debt. The relation with public and private debt is one that is of increasing interest to Post-Keynesian economists especially those who put their faith in Modern Monetary Theory. MMT would suggest the dropping government deficit is pushing the rest of us into deficit but the way the government has gone about this may be a bigger reason for the substantial rise in debt.
Whatever the cause the rising debt has economic repercussions. Consumer spending is a vital part of our economy and while debt can help fuel spending in our economy, predictably those with higher debt also limit their spending and in our post-crash economy the impact of household debt has been to hurt growth via the limitation of spending. Equally the possibility of this debt has to cause serious problems in our economy should not be underestimated. If you want to know what happens when a bubble of debt burst research the 2008 financial crash. Credit can benefit the economy but always has risk and this level of it presents a threat to our economy.
We should ask serious questions of how our economy would fair in a recession caused by another factor that we may be heading into to. Wages have not recovered from the crash of 2008 and with household debt at record levels we are in a much worse place than we were when the global financial crash struck in 2008. Make no mistake the large household debt that hangs over us has an unrealised detrimental effect to society.
Debt also provides a deeper challenge to society, in both its welfare and liberty. According to philosophers like Lazzarato and Goodchild debt greatly reduces liberty and by binding us to the will of credit. In a wider economic sense this means that this dramatic rise in household debt greatly damages the liberty of citizens through the need to pay their debts. Therefore, elimination of this debt should be a priority of parties across the political spectrum, whether they seek to maximise welfare or liberty, yet neither party has substantial policies designed to address it.…
The London Economic
Household debt is a problem- But its one our politicians don't want to talk aboutIwan Doherty
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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