Savings are allocated over the acquisition of assets like homes, shares and bonds and government debt paper. For a home acquisition an individual household uses own equity provided by the buyer and outside equity provided by banks. Such outside equity can help to increase the volume of new...

The world’s financial crisis happened in 2008, but the U.S. individual households’ income and savings crisis happened before that: the latter one was already at crisis point in 2005 and 2006. The key of any analysis about the households’ income and savings crisis should start with the...

The real financial crisis in the U.S. and in other countries did not take place in the banking or the wider financial sector -yes banks and others financial institutions were affected by their own induced excessive lending schemes- but no, it seriously affected the individual households. More...

Both the United States and the United Kingdom publish data on the balance sheet of Households and Non-profit organisations. Eurostat is studying the issue. The time series provide a unique tool to assess whether collectively the individual households are getting richer or poorer. They allow to...

Savings can be used in two different applications. Companies will nearly always use savings –equity, loans and bonds- to help produce and increase output and increase employment levels –the economic use of savings-. Individual households will take up mortgages. However the collective...

Savers, including pension savers, convert savings into assets: homes,government bonds and shares.The conversion of savings is for the very long term. Once monies are turned into assets, the reverse process of turning assets into cash cannot be achieved by all savers together. Unavoidably some...

Economists may need to change their tools of analysis from analysing income and expenditure contributors (GDP) to asset value contributors -the net worth levels of individual households-. Assessment of the latter requires a balance sheet analysis. Why; because the level of individual...

The global downturn is now strongly affecting EU labour markets. In light of the downward revision to the growth projections and the uncertainty created by the financial meltdown, the outlook for employment has deteriorated considerably. This would also be consistent with the experience from...