Unwinding the Credit Boom

Robert Samuelson writes in August 23th's Washington Post on Unwinding the Credit Boom. He traces the advent of high consumer borrowing to its current historic levels. He reports that the Fed is trying to slow it down gently but that only time will tell whether their strategy will lead to a soft landing or a recession.

We shall see. In other countries, people can get consumer debt through their unions rather than the marketplace. Perhaps employee-owned firms will begin to do this as well. If they do, you will see people moving their credit business from the marketplace where interest is required to private sources, where it might not be. If interest payments merely boost profits, then charging interest in an employee-owned firm would be an implict transfer from younger borrowers to older borrowers, who are already advantaged by owning more shares, which accumulate other shares unless the full payout goes to the worker. For the bigger picture, see the text of my book at http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/PayEquity.html, http://www.geocities.com/bindner_space/careers.html,
http://www.geocities.com/bindner_space/interindependence.html