The Illustrated History of the U.S. Credit Collapse

We constructed these charts with data from today’s release of the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds.  They are both stunning and frightening as they illustrate the cardiac arrest that took place in the credit markets.  The  collapse in credit issuance/borrowing began in 2008 and would have been net negative without the Federal government.  In 2009, for example, the Federal government was 141 percent of total net credit borrowings.

If, as the President says, ‘the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy”, the country would have died in 2009 had not the policymakers taken the extraordinary measures they did.    These charts illustrate how close we were to the abyss and should give a clearer perspective on what Bernanke & Co. were/are up against.  They are heroes, in our book, for stabilizing the situation and pulling us back from the abyss.  The jury is still out, however, on long-term structural adjustment and preventing a global sovereign debt crisis.