7/31/2019 Crisis in 1000 Words or Less

1/2

Steve Keens Debtwatch The Crisis in 1000 wordsor less July 22nd 2012

www.debtdeflation.com/blogs Page 1 www.debunkingeconomics.com

Both the crisis and the apparent boom before it were caused by the change in private debt. Rising

aggregate private debt adds to demand, and falling debt subtracts from it. This point is vehemently

denied on conventional theoretical grounds by economists like Paul Krugman, but it is obvious in theempirical data. The crisis itself began in 2008, precisely when the growth of private debt plunged from

its peak of almost 30% of GDP p.a. down to its depth of minus 20% in 2010.

The recovery, such as it

was, began when the rate of decline of debt slowed.

Across recession, boom and bust between 1990 and

2012, the correlation between the annual change in private debt and the unemployment rate was -0.92.

The causation behind this correlation is that money is created endogenously when the banking sector

creates loans, and this newly created money adds to aggregate demandas argued by non-orthodox

economists from Schumpeter through to Minsky. When this debt finances genuine investment, it is a

necessary part of a growing capitalist economy, it grows but shows no trend relative to GDP, and leads

to modest profits by the financial sector. But when it finances speculation on asset prices, it grows faster

than GDP, leads obscene profits by the financial sector and generates Ponzi Schemes which are to

sustainable economic growth as cancer is to biological growth.

When those Ponzi Schemes unravel, the rate of growth of debt collapses and the boost to demand from

rising debt becomes a drag on demand as debt falls. In all other post-WWII downturns, growth resumed

when debt began to rise relative to GDP once more. However the bubble we have just been through has

pushed debt levels past anything in recorded history, triggering a deleveraging process that is the

hallmark of a Depression.

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

0

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Unemployment

Debt Change

Change in Private Debt & Unemployment

www.debtdeflation.com/blogs

PercentofWorkforceUn

employed

PercentofGDPp.a.

0

7/31/2019 Crisis in 1000 Words or Less

2/2

Steve Keens Debtwatch The Crisis in 1000 wordsor less July 22nd 2012

www.debtdeflation.com/blogs Page 2 www.debunkingeconomics.com

The last Depression saw debt levels fall from 240% to 45% of GDP over a 13 year period, and the

ensuing period of low debt led to the longest boom in Americas history. We commenced deleveraging

from 303% of GDP. After 3 years it is still 10% higher than the peak reached during the Great

Depression. On current trends it will take till 2027 to bring the level back to that which applied in the

early 1970s, when America had already exited what Minsky described as the robust financial society

that underpinned the Golden Age that ended in 1966.

While we delever, investment by American corporations will be timid, and economic growth will be

faltering at best. The stimulus imparted by government deficits will attenuate the downturnand the

much larger scale of government spending now than in the 1930s explains why this far greater

deleveraging process has not led to as severe a Depressionbut deficits alone will not be enough. If

America is to avoid two lost decades, the level of private debt has to be reduced by deliberate

cancellation, as well as by the slow processes of deleveraging and bankruptcy.

In ancient times, this was done by a Jubilee, but the securitization of debt since the 1980s has

complicated this enormously. Whereas only the moneylenders lost under an ancient Jubilee, debtcancellation today would bankrupt many pension funds, municipalities and the like who purchased

securitized debt instruments from banks. I have therefore proposed that a Modern Debt Jubilee should

take the form of Quantitative Easing for the Public: monetary injections by the Federal Reserve not

into the reserve accounts of banks, but into the bank accounts of the publicbut on condition that its

first function must be to pay debts down. This would reduce debt directly, but not advantage debtors

over savers, and would reduce the profitability of the financial sector while not affecting its solvency.

Without a policy of this nature, America is destined to spend up to two decades learning the truth of

Michael Hudsons simple aphorism that Debts that cant be repaid, wont be repaid.

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 20300

2040

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

240

260

280

300320

340

PrivateGovernment

Private Extrapolated

USA Debt Ratios

www.debtdeflation.com/blogs

DebtasPercentofGDP

100

2009 2027