SocraticGadfly: ‘Stagflation-lite,’ part 2

February 01, 2008

‘Stagflation-lite,’ part 2

Given how much over their earnings heads consumers spent in the past decade is another reason nobody will go broke with predictions of an extended period of ‘stagflation-lite.’

More and more of that debt is going to come due in the next few years, not just mounting credit card debt, but home equity debt and more. And, it’s going to come due with people more and more strapped. The flurry of personal, home deficit-based spending that got the economy out of the 2001 recession? The piper is piping, and we don’t have enough personal finance wiggle room for that to happen again, Michael Mandel argues.

The big question — how much of that $3 trillion in personal deficit spending will we as individuals, and the economy as a whole, ultimately have to “give back,” Mandel wonders.

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