Month: February 2009

How Big is the Mortgage Problem?

How big is the bad or “toxic” mortgage and loan problem in the US? Nouriel Roubini says the total losses on US mortgages and loans will be 3.6 Trillion, while the IMF has a lower estimate at 2.2 Trillion. Is there an easy way to gauge the size of this problem and check the veracity of these estimates?

Total US mortgage debt outstanding, including residential, commercial, and farm properties, stood at $14.7 Trillion dollars in December 2008. Of this, $4.9 Trillion in residential mortgage debt is guaranteed by the federal government through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae, and does not expose holders of this debt to any risk of loss.

During the depths of the Great Depression, roughly half of all mortgages on homes in major cities were in default. Interestingly, home prices only fell by 20% during the same period, so that even during the Depression, banks could expect to eventually recover 80% of the value of their defaulted loans – and this is assuming 100% financing!

Housing prices are falling more sharply in the current downturn, with Economy.com predicting a peak-to-trough decline of 36%. Mortgage default rates so far have been much lower than the Great Depression, and total defaults across all mortgages are unlikely to exceed 20% during this recession. Assuming a hefty 20% default rate, and an extraordinary 50% drop in home values, banks would still lose only 10% of total loan principal. This would amount to a worst-case $1 Trillion loss in US mortgage lending. According the Federal Reserve, consumer and commercial loans together total another $4 Trillion in principal outstanding. If these loans default at a high rate of 25%, another $1 Trillion in losses would be incurred, for a total of $2 Trillion in US loan losses.

These simple calculations take into account the extraordinary default rates and real estate price drops occurring today, and yet the $2 Trillion in projected losses and is far lower than some economists’ estimates. Perhaps the problem is more tractable than suggested; while $2T is a large sum, it’s much more manageable than the $3-4T predicted by pessimists!

Posted on by praveenghanta 1

How much energy do we need?

energyvshumandevelopment

Energy usage vs UN Human Development Index, 1997

How much energy do we need? In traditional economics, this question is meaningless, as humanity simply consumes the amount of energy demanded at the market-clearing price. But in a resource-constrained world, this question becomes pertinent. Can the world’s energy supplies power a future in which all of mankind uses the same amount of energy as the average American? What level of energy usage is possible, and as fossil fuel sources run short, what kind of renewable energy investment will be required? Let’s examine some scenarios:

Scenario 1: The World at American Standards

The United States consumes 100 quadrillion btu of energy annually. If the world’s population stabilizes around 9 billion, bringing the entire world up to US energy consumption would require 6000 quadrillion btu per year. This is more than twelve times current energy production, a figure that even optimistic forecasters doubt possible. If solar panels cost 50 cents per watt installed (90% cheaper than today and cheaper than coal), an investment of $500 Trillion would be required to provide this amount of energy.

Scenario 2: The World at European Standards

The graph above shows that the US could cut per capita energy consumption by 70% without a significant drop in quality of life. Achieving this standard worldwide would require total energy production of 1800 quadrillion btu per year, still more than triple today’s capabilities. An investment of $150 Trillion would provide enough solar energy to power the world at these standards, a number over double current world GDP.

Scenario 3: Current Energy Usage per Capita

The scenarios above assume that the developing world eventually reaches parity with the industrialized world. Assume instead that current energy usage is maintained on a per capita basis, with the world’s population stabilizing at 9 billion. The world would consume 700 quads of energy per year. This level of energy usage would require $60 Trillion in investment, which might be achievable over time.

Conclusion

Unless energy prices drop by 99 percent via nuclear fusion, the world’s economy is likely to be energy-constrained in the future. It’s highly unlikely that the entire world will ever reach an American or even European level of energy consumption, and even current energy consumption levels will require a massive investment to reach sustainability. The calculations above assume that renewable energy will become significantly cheaper than coal, and yet the cost of replacing the world’s energy infrastructure is enormous. But in the long run, it will be necessary!

Calculations

At 50 cents per Watt installed, what’s the price per kilowatt-hour that I’m assuming? Assume that a 1kW solar system produces 1800 kWh per year, as according to SolarBuzz. Over a 30 year lifetime the system would produce 54000 kWh. If this system costs $500 at 50 cents per watt, then $500 / 54000 kWh = 1 cent per kWh. This is much cheaper than retail delivered electricity generated from coal.

Scenario 1:

1800 kWh * 3413 btu / kWh = 6143400 btu per $500 system

6000 quadrillion btu / 6143400 btu/system = 976 billion 1kW systems needed

At $500 each, that’s $490 Trillion.

Scenario 2: 1800 is 30% of 6000, so 1800 quadrillion btu would require $147 Trillion in investment.

Scenario 3: 700 is 11.6% of 6000, so 700 quadrillion btu would require $57 Trillion in investment.

Posted on by praveenghanta 7

US Debt to exceed GDP by 2015

Here’s a more recent post – the US Debt is now likely to exceed GDP by 2010, next year!

The United States federal debt stands at 10.7 trillion today, or 75% of US GDP. The CBO projects that the US debt will reach 14.6 trillion by 2015, without accounting for the effects of the stimulus package and ongoing bank rescues. These efforts could easily add 1-2 trillion to the total debt, sending the debt over 16 trillion by 2015.

GDP growth may be negative for 2009, and will probably average 2% through 2015 according to CBO projections. Real GDP at the end of 2008 was 14.2 trillion, and is project to rise to 15.8 trillion by 2015, less than the federal debt at that time! Rising inflation may prevent this from happening, but will bring its own set of problems.

Where does a debt load of 100% of GDP put the United States relative to other nations? That would put the US among the top 10 most indebted nations in the world, with peers like Zimbabwe and Italy.

Source Links:

Current US GDP at Bureau of Economic Analysis

US Total Debt at treasurydirect.gov

CBO Budget and Deficit Projections – Click Budget Projections. This xls also includes economic growth estimates.

CIA World Factbook Ranking of Nations by Public Debt

Posted on by praveenghanta 2

Healthcare Bubble

Dot com bubble. Real estate bubble. Commodities bubble. Healthcare bubble? How can the US healthcare system be a bubble when tens of millions are uninsured and more people fall through the cracks daily? The media, public, and politicians alike have been more concerned with the inadequacies of the system than with its rapid growth. US healthcare spending has grown enormously, exceeding the rate of inflation for decades to become the largest sector of the US economy. The United States now spends over 16% of its GDP on healthcare, almost double the average for developed nations.

Perhaps Americans just demand the best and priciest healthcare, with the most modern technology and treatments. Other insurance prices are on a steep rise, including home, accidental and auto insurance. If Americans paid for healthcare themselves, this would simply represent a rational spending choice. But the federal government now incurs 60% of all healthcare spending, meaning that taxpayers, and not individuals, pay for most of our healthcare. Medicare, Medicaid, and other direct government healthcare accounts for 46% of healthcare spending, while tax breaks on healthcare subsidize another 10-15% of healthcare spending [1].

At current growth rates, government healthcare spending will exceed the entire Federal budget by 2050 [2]. Total spending on healthcare will near one-third of GDP by 2030. It’s unlikely that the US can devote 1/3rd of all productive capacity to healthcare without crippling other sectors of the economy and reducing overall economic growth. The healthcare bubble thus dwarfs all previous bubbles in size, since the technology, real estate, and energy sectors are all so much smaller.

How will the bubble pop, and what will its effects be? Since most healthcare spending is federal, the bubble will pop when the government can no longer afford its healthcare outlays. The US has been able to borrow freely by issuing debt for many decades, but this will eventually end once our debt exceeds GDP. With the current downturn, government debt may actually exceed GDP by 2015 [3]. Thus the reckoning may come sooner than many expect.

Will healthcare reform contain costs and deflate the bubble gradually? Most reform plans focus more on increased coverage than on cost control, so they may exacerbate the problem. Eventually the hard choices will have to be made, and they will include some combination of reducing Medicare benefits, cutting provider reimbursements, openly rationing government health care, and limiting the tax break on health insurance. I just hope that some of the hard choices are made before we are collectively up against a fiscal wall.

[1] $200 Billion in taxes are foregone as a result of the employer-based healthcare tax deduction, equivalent to 10% of all healthcare spending. When this subsidy is included the government’s share of healthcare spending rises to 56%. This analysis does not include the exemptions on property taxes and sales taxes that healthcare providers receive; adding these subsidies in would likely drive the government’s share of health care spending over 60%.

[2] The CBO predicts that Medicare and Medicaid will account for 14% of GDP by 2050. This figure doesn’t include healthcare spending through the VA system, SCHIP program, and other federal healthcare programs, which total $100 Billion in spending today. If these programs also grow commensurately, total government spending may near 18% of GDP in 2050, roughly equivalent to total government revenue.

[3] This projection of public debt growth shows that US government debt will exceed gdp by 2050. This only takes into account debt held by the public, however. Gross government debt is already above 65% of GDP, and may grow to 75% by the end of 2010 as a result of the recession and stimulus spending. With deficits of $500B+ per year possible for several year, US total government debt could exceed gdp in less than 10 years.

Posted on by praveenghanta 13