A new report from the New York Fed shows a disturbing trend (if you’re a bank, that is) about consumer credit as the borrow-and-spend baby-boomer generation heads off into the sunset with a chastened millennial generation not able/willing to take up the slack.
Here’s the key takeaway:
We find that aggregate debt balances held by younger borrowers have declined modestly from 2003 to 2015, with a debt portfolio reallocation away from credit card, auto, and mortgage debt, toward student debt. Debt held by borrowers between the ages of 50 and 80, however, increased by roughly 60 percent over the same time period.
It appears that getting saddled with monstrous student loan debt might be good for tenured professors and college administrators, but bad for an economy that is based largely on buying things you don’t need with money you don’t have.
Related:
Mike Halsall on Prediction Markets, Crowd Wisdom, and Forecasting
