State of the World’s Biggest Debt Slaves: Americans Wimp Out in 11th Place

Amazing, you have to click through to see the charts and percentages. You'll be shocked...

Americans are infamous for their eagerness to spend money they don’t have. A whole industry has grown up around making that happen, from payday lenders to the government that guarantees or insures a large portion of the mortgages so that lenders and investors don’t have to carry the risk. Consumer debt is turned into asset-backed securities, from government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities to subprime-auto-loan-backed securities whose top tranches carry an AA-rating or even a AAA-rating.

It all worked out. But then came the moment when Americans deleveraged, mostly by defaulting on their debts, particularly their mortgage debts, which triggered the US Financial Crisis and then the Global Financial Crisis. The world should have learned a lesson, but no. Who has learned a lesson? American consumers whose household debt in relationship to US GDP has continued to decline.

US household debt inched down to 76.4% of GDP in the third quarter 2018, according to the newest batch of global data from the Bank for International Settlements. This was the lowest level since 2002. It put Americans in the inexplicably wimpy, and for the finance sector, insufferable 11th place:

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