主题：【原创】房地产并未触底，房贷公司New Century狂跌36% -- 倥偬飞人

[URL=]http://www.prudentbear.com/articles/show/341 [/URL]

During the five years 1995-2000, nonfinancial debt growth by 32.4% went together with 22.2% real GDP growth. In the following five years 2000-05, nonfinancial debt grew by 47.3% and real GDP by 13.4%. There has been an atrocious deterioration in the relationship between debt growth and economic growth.

Between 2000 and third quarter 2006, the mortgage debt of U.S. private households soared from $4,801.7 billion to $9,497.4 billion. In barely six years, it has, thus, almost doubled.

The fact is that private households have drastically curbed their mortgage borrowing recently. It amounted to $672.7 billion in the third quarter 2006, sharply down from $1,223.6 billion in the same quarter of last year. That is, consumer borrowing almost halved. It amazes us how little attention this fact finds.

It means that the most important credit source for spending in the economy is rapidly drying up, even though money and credit remain, in general, as loose as ever. It is drying up because the decisive lever of this borrowing binge, rising house prices, has broken down; most importantly, this lever is not under the control of the Federal Reserve.

A sharp decline or even cessation of such borrowing essentially indicates an impending sharp retrenchment in consumer spending. Mortgage equity withdrawal peaked at an annual rate of about $730 billion, or 8.1% of GDP, in the third quarter 2005. One year later, in the third quarter 2006, it was sharply down to $214 billion.

Considering the dramatic reversal in the housing bubble, a virtual collapse of consumer borrowing is definitely in the cards for the United States.

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