Did Households Buy 35X More In Govts. ....2009 vs 2008 .....

http://www.tradersnarrative.com/is-it-all-just-a-ponzi-scheme-3393.html


We must admit that we were surprised to discover that “Households” had bought so many Treasuries in 2009. They bought 35 times more government debt than they did in 2008. Given the financial condition of the average household in 2009, this makes little sense to us. With unemployment and foreclosures skyrocketing, who could afford to increase treasury investments to such a large degree? For our more discerning readers, this enormous “Household” investment was made outside of Money Market Funds, Mutual Funds, ETF’s, Life Insurance Companies, Pension and Retirement funds and Closed-End Funds, which are all separate reporting categories. This leaves a very important question - who makes up this Household Sector?

Amazingly, we discovered that the Household Sector is actually just a catch-all category. It represents the buyers left over who can’t be slotted into the other group headings. For most categories of financial assets and liabilities, the values for the Household Sector are calculated as residuals. That is, amounts held or owed by the other sectors are subtracted from known totals, and the remainders are assumed to be the amounts held or owed by the Household Sector. To quote directly from the Flow of Funds Guide, “For example, the amounts of Treasury securities held by all other sectors, obtained from asset data reported by the companies or institutions themselves, are subtracted from total Treasury securities outstanding, obtained from the Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government and the balance is assigned to the household sector.” (Emphasis ours) So to answer the question - who is the Household Sector? They are a PHANTOM. They don’t exist. They merely serve to balance the ledger in the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report.

 

It was the Bernanke household.

 

It would have been great if the author had done a calculation of how much more has been saved with the increased savings rate. THen he could find out the increase in consumer savings in banks and subtract numbers to at least give a ballpark estimate as to whether household consumers did buy part of the ~600B before jumping to the conclusion it is a ponzi figure.

 

ROTFL. Winningest post of 2009.