Reply #12: Here's a chart for you! [View All]

[ochazuke]

Go to www.pimco.com, click "U.S." then on Bill Gross' latest Investment Outlook (The Last Vigilante).

You'll find on page four a chart of total credit market debt as a percentage of GDP. That includes debt from both private as well as public sectors.

You can see that it was low back in the early twentieth century, tne skyrocketed as we went into the Great Depression and the GDP shrunk by a quarter. It hit 270% according to this chart.

Then it came back down into the War Years and remained steady at around 120%.

Then, it started to climb in the early 1980s and has never looked back.

Now it's at 299%, as another post here states.

(What happens if our GDP shirnks NOW!?)