The Wall Street Ponzi At Work——The Stock Pumping Swindle Behind Four Retail Zombies
by David Stockman
DavidStockmansContraCorner.com
August 17, 2015
In the nearby column Jim Quinn debunks Wall Street’s latest claim that the American consumer is bounding back. He points out that on an inflation-adjusted basis retail sales are barely higher than they were a year ago, and, for that matter, are still only 4% greater in real terms than they were way back in November 2007.
That’s right. Nearly eight years and $3.5 trillion of Fed money printing later, yet the vaunted American consumer is struggling to stay above the flat line, not shopping up a storm.
And there is no mystery as to why. After a 40-year borrowing spree culminating in the final mortgage credit blow-off on the eve of the great financial crisis, the US household sector had reached peak debt. It was tapped out with $13 trillion of mortgages, credit cards, auto, student and other loans —–a colossal financial burden that amounted to nearly 220% of wage and salary income or nearly triple the leverage ratio that had prevailed before 1971.
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