Tag Archive for: marginal productivity of debt

Heat Death of the Economic Universe

Heat Death of the Economic Universe

In physics, the heat death of the universe occurs if all matter is moving apart. If it happens, it will be long after we’re gone. But there’s a troubling move towards the heat death of the economy. There is a diminishing return on debt. CEO Keith Weiner gives a lecture for the Ayn Rand Centre […]

More Squeeze, Less Juice, Report 7 Jul

We have been writing on the flaws in GDP: that it is no measure of the economy, because it looks only at cash and not the balance sheet, and that there are positive feedback loops. “OK, Mr. Smarty Pants,” you’re thinking (yes, we know you’re thinking this), “if GDP is not a good measure of […]

Debt and Profit in Russell 2000 Firms

This week, the Supply and Demand Report featured a graph of debt vs profitability in the Russell 2000. Here’s the graph again: This graph shows a theme that we, and practically no one else(!) have been discussing for years. It is the diminishing marginal utility of debt. In this case, more and more debt is […]

The Duality of Money, Report 10 Mar

This is a pair of photographs taken by Keith Weiner, for a high school project. It seemed a fitting picture for the dual nature of money, the dual nature of wood both as logs to be consumed and dimensional lumber to be used to construct buildings. Last week, in Is Capital Creation Beating Capital Consumption, […]

Keith Interviewed on “Know Your Risk” Radio Show

Keith was recently invited as a guest on Zach Abraham’s “Know Your Risk” radio show alongside Brent Johnson, CEO of Santiago Capital. Their discussion covers a wide range of topics including; the US Dollar, China, gold, zombie corporations, the “de-dollarization” hype, global debt and more. In the interview Keith gives his thoughts on the recent price action […]

A Dire Warning, Report 29 July 2018

Let’s return to our ongoing series on the destruction of capital, and how to identify the signs. Steve Saville posted a thoughtful article this week entitled The “Productivity of Debt” Myth. His article provides a good opportunity to add some additional thoughts. We have written quite a lot on this topic. Indeed, we have a […]

Marginal Productivity of Debt

Understanding the marginal productivity of debt is key to understanding whether the amount of credit created is unsustainable, resulting in the failure of the monetary system and loss of everyone’s savings. Falling Productivity of Debt introduces the idea of the marginal productivity of debt, that is, how much additional GDP is added for each newly-borrowed […]

Heat Death of the Economic Universe, Report 5 Nov 2017

Listen to Keith give his talk “The Heat Death of the Economic Universe” here. Physicists say that the universe is expanding. However, they hotly debate (OK, pun intended as a foreshadowing device) if the rate of expansion is sufficient to overcome gravity—called escape velocity. It may seem like an arcane topic, but the consequences are […]

Falling Interest, Gold and Silver Report 22 Oct 2017

Last week, we discussed the marginal productivity of debt. This is how much each newly-borrowed dollar adds to GDP. And ever since the interest rate began its falling trend in 1981, marginal productivity of debt has tightly correlated with interest. The lower the interest rate, the less productive additional borrowing has in fact become. Let’s […]