when early this summer I suggested that it was not a good time to go out on a limb and get yourself in a deep hole of debt. This was in reponse to another local blogger's claim that the credit crisis had ended. See today's news for evidence that US consumers have reduced their personal debt for the first time in recorded history.
Mortgage debt fell at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the third quarter, the largest decline on record. Mortgage debt had fallen at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the second quarter. Those two quarterly declines are the first such drops in the Fed survey that dates back to 1952.
As I've said before, while this is painful in the short term it's absolutely necessary for the long term. Today's news of further layoffs at Bank of America also seems to be right in line with that same article I linked in June that predicted "massive consolidation" in the financial services industry. The world of the future isn't the world that these companies lived in for the last few years so they are doing what is necessary to reposition themselves.
Don't forget to check back to Dan's Deep Creek Blog for future updates.
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