American Household Worth Skyrockets

[otterinbham 0]

WASHINGTON - The net worth of U.S. households climbed to a record high in the final quarter of last year, boosted mostly by gains on stocks, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday.

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Net worth — the difference between households' total assets, such as houses and bank accounts, and their total liabilities, such as mortgages and credit card debt, totaled $55.6 trillion in the October-to-December quarter.

That marked a 2.5 percent growth rate from the third quarter, the previous quarterly record high. Stocks gains helped fuel the increase in net worth, although real-estate gains played a role, too.

For all of last year, households' net worth rose by 7.4 percent, a slower pace than the 7.9 percent increase registered in 2005.

Household debt, meanwhile, grew by 8.6 percent in 2006, down from a 11.7 percent increase in the prior year. The Fed said this deceleration "was accounted for by much slower growth of home mortgage debt."

Home mortgage debt growth slowed to a 8.9 percent last year, compared with a 13.8 percent increase in 2005. This year's growth in home mortgage debt was the smallest increase in six years.

After a five-year boom, the housing market fell into a deep slump last year. Sales cooled. So did home prices, which had been galloping ahead, making consumers feel more wealthy and more inclined to spend.

Economists said Thursday's report suggest households' finances are holding up fairly well to any strains caused by the troubled housing market and well as some sluggishness in overall economic growth. Analysts said that's because the jobs climate remains in good shape and income growth has picked up.

"Slower growth in some of the nation's high-flying housing markets was not enough to send net worth south in the fourth quarter," said Gina Martin, economist at Wachovia. "Instead, household balance sheets continued to improve, as growth in liabilities continued to slow, while growth in assets held steady."

One risk facing the economy is that the housing slump will take an unexpected turn for the worse, a development that likely would cause consumers to clamp down. That could spell trouble for overall economic activity.

[bigsixfive 328]

It's all Bush's fault.

No, wait... This is a good thing. Nevermind.

[Bottomfeeder 244]

Not according to Ron Paul, "The Taxpayer's Friend".

Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.

http://recap.fednet.net/archive/Buildasx.a...=&sExpire=1

[otterinbham 0]

Not according to Ron Paul, "The Taxpayer's Friend".

Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.

http://recap.fednet.net/archive/Buildasx.a...=&sExpire=1

Well, I was four minutes into your feed before it cut out on me, but what I heard was a unfocused partisan rant on foreign policy, not the economic growth of the country. As it stands the Federal debt as a share of the GDP is a far smaller proportion of the GDP than any industrialized country. Further, with the exception of China, the rate of growth in productivity and household net worth continue to outstrip the rest of the industrialized world by a point or so, a trend that has not changed since the early 80s, when American fiscal policy began rewarding long-term capital investment, rather than punishing it.

And, by the way, BF, if you are so concerned about the taxpayer's share of the Federal debt, perhaps you should stop parroting every press release generated by the Democratic Party. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the pet programs of the Democrats, are far greater and far more immediate threats to the long-term fiscal health than our overseas military commitmments. Oh, and to be fair about matters, Bush's Prescription Act could possibly be the stupidest legislation of all time, right up there with the Hawley Smoot Tariff Act.

Mind you, I believe and have always believed that Iraq was a grotesque stupidity of the highest order. But compared to the wholesale irresponsibility of entitlement programs, it's just a drop in the bucket.

[Bottomfeeder 244]

Not according to Ron Paul, "The Taxpayer's Friend".

Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.

http://recap.fednet.net/archive/Buildasx.a...=&sExpire=1

Well, I was four minutes into your feed before it cut out on me, but what I heard was a unfocused partisan rant on foreign policy, not the economic growth of the country. As it stands the Federal debt as a share of the GDP is a far smaller proportion of the GDP than any industrialized country. Further, with the exception of China, the rate of growth in productivity and household net worth continue to outstrip the rest of the industrialized world by a point or so, a trend that has not changed since the early 80s, when American fiscal policy began rewarding long-term capital investment, rather than punishing it.

And, by the way, BF, if you are so concerned about the taxpayer's share of the Federal debt, perhaps you should stop parroting every press release generated by the Democratic Party. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the pet programs of the Democrats, are far greater and far more immediate threats to the long-term fiscal health than our overseas military commitmments. Oh, and to be fair about matters, Bush's Prescription Act could possibly be the stupidest legislation of all time, right up there with the Hawley Smoot Tariff Act.

Mind you, I believe and have always believed that Iraq was a grotesque stupidity of the highest order. But compared to the wholesale irresponsibility of entitlement programs, it's just a drop in the bucket.

It reloads itself, be patient.

[otterinbham 0]

Ah. I've viewed it now. By the way, after viewing this video, where did you the 50 Trillion dollar figure? Did you just make that up?

This guy is basically a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, an ideological heir to Neville Chamberlain and Father Coughlin. Let me take on his points one by one.

1) We should have never intervened in the Middle East. Let me see. By this man's logic, we should have let Saddam Hussein consolidate his conquest of Kuwait, thereby emboldening him to conquer the rest of the Arabian peninsula. If you think $3 a gallon gas is bad, you wouldn't believe how that would have devastated the world's economy.

2) Kosovo. So basically, this guy was all for the the wholesale genocide of Bosnians, right? 10,000 men and boys were massacred at Srebrenica alone, while a Dutch battalion looked on and didn't chamber a round. The Americans finally intervene to stop this outrage. Now, are you telling me that we shouldn't have intervened and that the Serbs should have continued their bloody business unmolested? How high should the butchers bill be, BF? A million?

3) Base closings. The old base structure was extraordinarily costly, the result of patronage politics. When this speaker is railing against base closings in this country, what he's really mad about is the loss of pork to his district.

Again, while I did not support the military adventure in Iraq, military spending is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlement programs. At the same time, America's individual wealth is far higher and national debt is far lower levels than virtually any other industrialized country, and gap is increasing between the US and the welfare states of Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden (Denmark, interestingly enough, has begun taking on American style reforms and has suddenly boosted its formerly moribund economic performance). Don't take my word for it. Read Cowboy Capitalism, written by a German economist. It effectively punctures all the tired arguments and talking points that you trot out on a daily basis.