In Your Debt

The Guardian has a bite-sized summary of the decade of debt titled The global economy's decade of debt-fuelled boom and bust: Borrowing was both the shaky foundation of global growth and the cause of its collapse.

Here is one of the key points in this article:

. . . debt-driven growth is eventually unsustainable. To generate growth from borrowing, you have to borrow more year in, year out. The second is that borrowing binges lead to asset booms, which investors seek to rationalise using arguments such as "a new paradigm" or "a wall of money".

The final lesson is that the point of maximum danger in any borrowing boom is when borrowing starts to slow, not when it stops. "However much you borrow and spend this year," Joshi says, "if it is less than last year, it means your spending will go into recession."

Currently the U. S. and I believe the U. K. and Australia have pushed total debt:GDP to a new record high.

Extend and pretend.

Money that you hope appreciates should be as far from borrowing and lending as possible. (Gold is the ultimate in that regard in the classical sense, but unfortunately people borrow nowadays to buy all assets, whether gold or Apple Inc.)

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