Re: what's going to happen?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Doug writes:>A lot of folks at the WEF were saying it's going to be a W, or
a U with an extremely saggy right tail. Krugman gave a synopsis of one of
the brainstorming sessions that sounded rather downbeat I'm told. <

you weren't invited to the WEF? It's interesting that they're pessimistic.
Time to sell! (as if I had anything to sell...)
>The thing about debt, though, is you never know what the killing level is.
In the U.S., it's just kept rising, except for unpleasant but not disastrous
periods like the early 1990s. You could recycle debt worries from 1975 or
1981 or 1989 almost word for word. Debt's a good explanation after something
cracks, but you never know the timing. You never know when lenders will
change their minds or why. <
Obviously, the "killing level" for debt depends on the value of assets. With
falling or stagnant asset prices, the debt is more likely to "kill" both
consumers and corporations.
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine