In the 15 quarters ended 3Q2016, total loans in all sectors have grown by a measly 14.5%.
Compare the 15 quarters ended 3Q1986 when the measure grew by 53%.
The fact of the matter is lending hit the big brick wall in 2007. It has recovered but not to anything like the post-war rate where total credit market debt outstanding doubled every 6 to 11 years. Under Reagan it doubled in 6 years.
Ten years out from 2007, we're currently about $34 trillion behind the outside range with a year to go. We aren't going to make it.
Why that is has to do with the broken housing model more than anything else, and the failure to find anything else to replace it.
With overcapacity everywhere else in the economy, it doesn't seem likely anything will be found to take housing's place, either, except housing.
Maybe someone could revive "A Dodge in every garage and a chicken in every pot"?
Obama certainly failed to understand the central importance of housing to the economy, and Trump talk now of $1 trillion in infrastructure spending is laughably unimaginative, the equivalent of taking a wizz in the ocean.
Infrastructure spending isn't conceivably up to scaling the $34 trillion lending deficit we face.
