Are We Really in an Empire of Debt?

Gary Alexander has been in financial publishing for over 30 years. His specialty is taking apart the arguments of scare-mongers. Here’s his review of Empire of Debt:

Agora Publishing was kind enough to send me a free copy of their book, Empire of Debt (by Bill Bonner and Allison Wiggin), and I actually read it cover to cover during my debt-free (paper money, not plastic) Christmas shopping season. All along, I sensed something missing. When I finished the book, I looked in the index to confirm what I already knew. There was a very important word missing. Indeed, it only appeared on one page, according to the index, and that key word is “ASSETS.” How can you write 300 pages about debts without mentioning assets?
The Empire of Debt, as colorfully written as it was, failed to address the vital question of the corresponding growth in American household, corporate and government assets, which offset debts. The only reference to assets referred to a page describing most assets as “overvalued.”
Certainly, there will always be people who live beyond their means, and many of them will face a day of reckoning. Each of us probably know some specific people in this category,. Maybe some members of your extended family fit this bill. As a general rule, young people get in debt, and older people pay off their debts and then get rich, but I hate to generalize, so let’s look at the facts.
On an aggregate basis, Americans are getting richer and are paying down their debts. The stock market crash of 2000-02 (you may have read about that one in the papers) “wiped out $14 trillion of wealth,” it was said, with no mention of the accumulation of wealth before or since. I looked up those figures recently, at the Federal Reserve: Sure enough, net household wealth declined all three years of the crash, from a peak of about $42 trillion at year-end-1999, but it was only down $4 trillion, not $14 trillion, bottoming out at $38 trillion at the end of 2002. Considering the size and scope of that once-in-a-generation market crash, a net decline of 10% in household wealth was not such a huge blow.
Then, in 2003, the tax cuts boosted our take-home pay for income and growth investments, and the American wealth machine revived with a vengeance
Year-end Net U.S. Household Wealth
2002 $38 trillion
2003 $43 trillion
2004 $48 trillion
2005 $51 trillion *
* Through the third quarter of 2005, not counting a strong fourth-quarter stock market rally.
Source: Federal Reserve
Household wealth refers to household assets minus liabilities. In the Doomsday press, all you read about is the near-$10 trillion in household debts, but have you heard anyone quote the $61 trillion in gross assets, six times the debt totals, resulting in net assets of $51 trillion (61 minus 10). In the 2.5 years since the 2003 tax cut, per capita net worth has increased 16%, and the average household is now 27% better off than in 1998, in the middle of the stock market bubble. And U.S. household wealth has almost doubled since 1995. That’s not counting business, which controls an $11 trillion “savings glut” of hoarded cash.
Here’s another wealth statistic the media missed: In 2005, for the third consecutive year, the number of households with more than $1 million in net worth (excluding their primary residence) has risen. According to TNS Financial Services’ latest Affluent Market Research Program (AMRP) annual survey of U.S. households, the number of millionaires increased 8%, to 8.9 million families as of mid-2005.
U.S. Millionaire Households (in millions)
2001: 6.0 million (a decline of 4% from 2000, due to the tech stock bubble)
2002: 5.5 million (another 9% decline)
2003: 6.2 million (+13%)
2004: 8.2 million (+33%)
2005: 8.9 million (+8%)
The immediate reaction is that this 61% growth in millionaire households since 2002 is due to the housing bubble, but these figures exclude the household’s primary residence. Most of this gain is from accumulation of common stock. The report said that ownership of stocks and bonds was up (72% of millionaires owned individually held stocks and bonds in 2005, up from 63% in 2003), while their debt decreased substantially. In 2004 the average debt was $179,000. In 2005, that number fell to $165,000, an 8% decrease.
This annual report reflects and updates the research done by Tom Stanley in his book, The Millionaire Next Door. The vast majority of millionaires are patient, debt-averse investors. The TNS report says “When asked about their investment approach over the past year, 61% of millionaires said their approach has changed very little, indicating they have a strategy and they are sticking to it.” Nor is real estate and its famed “bubble” a driving force behind the increase in the number of millionaires. In fact, ownership in investment real estate was down from 2004, when 50% of millionaires owned investment real estate, including second or vacation homes, compared to 44% in 2005, but these households are not becoming wealthy based on real estate, the report confirmed.
The AMRP survey is based on a representative national sample of over 1,800 households with a net worth of $500,000 or more, excluding their primary residence. The survey also includes additional interviews of households with $1 million or more in investable assets. They also poll the next rung of the wealth ladder, or what they call the “emerging affluent households,” those with $100,000 to $500,000 in positive net worth, excluding their primary residence. This group has also increased in the past year, from 23.9 million in 2004, to 24.5 million in 2005.
I cite these facts in detail because nobody else seems to be reporting on the positive side of America’s “debt crisis.” As Sophie Tucker famously said, “I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” Most of the poor are young, but then they grow (in wealth) over a lifetime, not suddenly. Over 65% of the Forbes 400 started with essentially nothing. Only 15% inherited their wealth. The migration of wealth from the slackers to the hard-worker, well educated and imaginative innovators is an essential fact of life in a free economy. Those deep in debt, with no exit strategy, will most likely suffer. But the majority of Americans are growing richer almost every year. Unfortunately, that won’t make the evening news, but maybe it should.

Posted by on February 24th, 2006 at 1:56 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.