Debt exceeds disposable income by 30% nationwide

Some telling statistics yesterday from Hale Stewart’s feature from The Huffington Post:

In the fourth quarter of 2001, total household debt was 102 percent of disposable income at the national level.

In the second quarter of 2007 it was 129.62 percent of personal income at the national level.

Household debts now outpace the average disposable income by 30% nationwide. Ouch.

Those are some surprising debt figures and they don’t even mention last years $765 billion trade deficit (importing more than we export), and the rapidly rising national deficit now topping $9 trillion (a trillion has 12 zero’s behind it for those keeping track at home).

There is another issue no one is talking about: America is being hollowed out through the sale of its best companies. Through August, 786 companies worth $129 billion have been sold to foreign acquirers. The future profit and technology transfer to the acquirer- as many American industries have come under foreign control.

With a declining dollar and our best companies sending their future profits overseas, just how exactly are we going to pay off all these debts? The answer is we can’t.

As long as our leader in Washington spend- as long as our government doesn’t invest in industry so we can produce competitively- as long as our GDP provides a façade of success, America will remain in an indebted and troubled economic quandary.