MGI on Debt and Deleveraging

McKinsey Global Institute has a new report out on debt and deleveraging. Key takeaways from the executive summary are:
- Over leverage is widespread, affecting many different countries and sectors (household, states, financial insititutions, commercial real estate and to a lesser extent corporates)
- Deleveraging has barely begun
- If past episodes are any guide growth will be slow to negative for a few years as
- Past deleveraging episodes lasted 6 to 7 years on average.

The long report (not read) is a goldmine of data with a detailed look at seven past deleveraging episodes.

Debt and more debt

Econbrowser has the discussion and the following charts:

First Federal debt held by the public as a % of GDP. Actually not unprecended but let's not repeat the ww2 war effort.


Second a CBO projection of the same ratio under their "alternative fiscal scenario" assuming no changes to current policies. Something has to give.

Debt to GDP

The BigPicture refers to OptionARMaggedon for the following charts:



As a % of GDP: