Today’s chart comes from Econompic and tracks how in the United States, public sector spending has offset private sector deleveraging in Q3 of 2011:
There are two takeaways here.
First, whilst the US private sector is outright deleveraging, this has only just begun and it still at hugely elevated levels (except college students who are caught in a Ponzi scheme).
Second, US GDP is only being held up at ca. 2% p.a because of massive (10% of GDP) government deficit spending. That spending will be cut in FY2012 automatically, and may even be slashed further on the outside chance a Republican candidate wins the election against incumbent Barack Obama.
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