Not actually a news item, but needs to be said.

This post, however, focuses on private rather than public debt.  Prepare to be offended … and lock up your sacred cows before we find and slaughter them.

The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a new paper analyzing 138 years of economic history in 14 advanced economies, which proves that high levels of private debt cause severe recessions.

As summarized by Business Insider:

Through a series of tests run on a sample of 14 advanced economies between 1870 and 2008, Mr Taylor establishes a link between the growth of private sector credit and the likelihood of financial crisis. The link between crisis and credit [i.e. private debt] is stronger than between crises and growth in the broad money supply, the current account deficit, or an increase in public debt.

Over the 138-year timeframe Mr Taylor finds crisis preceded by the development of excess credit, as in Ireland and Spain today, are more common than crisis underpinned by excessive government borrowing, like in Greece. Fiscal strains in themselves do not tend to result in financial crisis.

The study shows that excessive private debt is a much more accurate and consistent predictor of financial crisis than the amount of public debt. (However, high levels of public debt exacerbate the problems caused by massive private debt, since governments which are already “in the red” have little ammunition left with which to help out the economy.)

[Like all that private debt accumulated during the run up and subsequent crash of the stock market in the late 1920s. Mostly held by the banks and Wall Street.]