droblo
Administrator
The relationship of U.S. net worth to GDP appears to have reached unsustainable heights recently, by historical standards.
American consumers have about $14 trillion in debt and a net worth of over $80 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Net worth is the sum of the values of all assets, real and financial, that consumers own, less their debt, including mortgage debt, leases, credit cards and the like.
The wealth we hold is a way of storing purchasing power. You can sell your shares of Apple and buy “stuff”, goods and services. Ultimately, for most consumers, that’s what our wealth is used for, to acquire “stuff”. Some of our assets provide services directly, such as our houses and cars.
The real services received from these assets would seem to be unchanged over time even though their market prices vary. As the market value of your house rose and then fell, did the real housing services you received rise and then fall as well? Probably not.
Financial assets do provide an income that can be used to buy stuff. And part of the goal of quantitative easing was to induce people to buy more stuff (real goods and services) as their asset values were inflated in markets. On first blush, not much of this seemed to occur. That said, the total value of our net worth represents a potential claim on stuff, the real output of our economy.
The broadest measure of “stuff” is the gross domestic product, the total value of final goods and services produced in a given period. Constructing the ratio of net worth to GDP illustrates the fluctuation of claims on output per dollar of output produced.
Not surprisingly, this was a fairly steady series for 25 years (maybe longer) from 1970 to the mid-1990s, as gains in nominal wealth were matched with gains in nominal output, averaging about 3.5 dollars in claims on output for every one dollar of GDP.
The advent of the dot.com era (and Y2K) drove the ratio up to 4.4 dollars and then the housing bubble saw it rise to 4.7 dollars. Real housing services received in that period probably did not rise and fall with house prices. The end of the housing bubble drove the ratio down to 3.7 dollars — an adjustment of a full dollar, or one full multiple of GDP — but still above the 25-year average from 1970 to 1995. Perhaps this confusion about asset prices is partly a result of years, even decades, of massive central bank interventions in the U.S. (and globally).
Each peak in this relationship was followed by a recession, the last one the worst in modern history. And now the ratio has once again reached 4.7 dollars. History suggests that the ratio will collapse again, probably toward the 3.5 dollar level. This can be accomplished by a massive increase in GDP (unlikely) or a
massive decline in the value of assets, net worth (more likely).
The economy is not likely to fall into a recession in the next year or two, but growth will be historically modest. What can impact the market value of assets? The return of “normal” interest rates, weaker profit growth, a serious global slowdown — each could trigger the “adjustment” in net worth. The adjustment might be accelerated because of widespread short covering and record high margin credit and other leverage.
Logically this seems unavoidable, unless you believe that we are truly wealthier now, even with an economy that is delivering a rather poor performance (historically weak output and sales growth) in real terms. It would seem not to be “whether” we will adjust but when and how that will challenge the money managers and prognosticators.
Dr. William Dunkelberg is the chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business.