Commercial PropertyRealty Viewpoint: The Consumer Is Overburdened By Services
In written testimony to the House Financial Services Committee last week, Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University made some startling statements. Not only are we in a recession, there is a "serious risk of a systemic meltdown in US financial markets ... ."
Weak retail and auto sales, falling consumer confidence, the credit crunch, the housing and commercial recession, stock market correction, and a global economic slowdown point to a "severe" recession that will last longer and be harsher than the recessions of 1990-91 and 2001.
The reasons he gives for the severity of the current recession is threefold- housing -- which he predicts to fall 20 to 30 percent, the US financial system, and the over-burdened consumer.
"The U.S. consumer is shopped out, saving-less and debt-burdened," he says.
Currently, consumers are responsible for 70.5 percent of the gross domestic product through their purchase of goods and services. That"s not the highest percentage in history, but its proving to be unsustainable.
For one thing, we can"t afford what we"re buying. The latest Commerce Department personal consumption report says that consumer prices have risen 3.7 percent in January while disposable income has risen only 1.2 percent for the same period.
Two studies have shown that consumers are so accustomed to spending that they"ve increased total credit card debt by 315 percent from 1989 to 2006, says research firm Demos. And delinquencies are the highest in three years, says CardTrack.com.
How did we become such a nation of shopping addicts?
Michael Armah, economist for the Bureau of Economic Analysis suggests the answer to why the consumer is carrying increasingly heavier loads of the nation"s economy might lie in this table.
In 1929, gross domestic product was $103.6 billion. Personal consumption (consumers), composed of the purchase of durable goods, nondurable goods, and services, was $77.4 billion, or 75 percent of GDP. By 1933, when the Great Depression was at its worst, GDP was $56.4 billion, carried largely by the consumer at $45.9 billion or 81 percent of GDP.
In 1949, the most prosperous year of the decade following World War II, GDP was 267.3 billion and personal consumption was $178.5 billion, or 67 percent.
By 1954, GDP was $380.4 billion, personal consumption $240 billion, or 63 percent.
By 1963, personal consumption was $382.7 or 62 percent of GDP, as it was in 1978.
By the 1990s, personal consumption as a percentage of GDP was gaining. In 1991, during the recession, personal consumption as a percentage of GDP was back up to 66 percent and 67 percent in 1997. The percentage crossed back over the 70 percentile in 2001 where it has remained.
So what"s made the difference?
When the economy is shaky, business pulls back, leaving consumers with the lion"s share of responsibility for the economy, but there"s also evidence that consumers are simply spending more.
Services, as a percentage of personal consumption, have grown exponentially. Think cell phones, cable TV, and the Internet. In 1929, services were $30.5 billion, or 29 percent of personal consumption. In 2007, services were a whopping 60 percent of personal consumption.
So here"s my plan for avoiding the recession and getting housing back on track. Instead of an economic stimulus package, make the cell phone and cable companies give consumers rebates and better rates on our phone and TV services.