by MonteQuest » Wed 09 Nov 2005, 01:01:05
My prediction from Dec 2004:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'T')o curb the inflation, the Fed will raise interest rates. And as the price of food and other essential commodities rise--along with house payments tied to variable rate mortgages--luxuries and dispensable goods and services will drop out of the family budgets and the standard of living will decline and unemployment will rise.
Consumers may have to cut spending $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsider the title of a recent report from Banc of America Securities: "Stopping the Consumer Requires Kryptonite, Not Expensive Oil."
Rather than cut spending, the report said, consumers will draw down their savings some more. And really, can you blame anyone on Wall Street for believing that?
David Rosenberg doesn't believe it. He's the chief economist at Merrill Lynch in New York.
"You get a little jaded when the last time the U.S. consumer pressed the pause button was the fourth quarter of 1991," Mr. Rosenberg said.
He's been comparing household debt to disposable personal incomes. It was only about five years ago that we passed what was considered "the point of no return."
That's where households' total liabilities exceeded their disposable personal incomes.
Faster, faster
Of course, Americans saw that line in the sand and galloped over it at breakneck speed.
Today the debt-to-income ratio stands at a gravity-defying
124 percent
.