McKinsey fasst zusammen: (fast) alles schlimmer als vor zehn Jahren

• “As the Great Recession receded, many expected to see a wave of deleveraging. But it never came. Confounding expectations, the combined global debt of governments, nonfinancial corporations, and households has grown by $72 trillion since the end of 2007 (Exhibit 1). The increase is smaller but still pronounced when measured relative to GDP.” – bto: Das wissen wir alles, aber die Abbildung ist schön.
• “Governments in advanced economies have borrowed heavily, as have nonfinancial companies around the world. China alone accounts for more than one-third of global debt growth since the crisis. Its total debt has increased by more than five times over the past decade to reach $29.6 trillion by mid-2017. Its debt has gone from 145 percent of GDP in 2007, in line with other developing countries, to 256 percent in 2017. This puts China’s debt on a par with that of advanced economies.” – bto: mit den hier kürzlich (erneut) diskutierten Risiken.

• “Global nonfinancial corporate debt, including bonds and loans, has more than doubled over the past decade to hit $66 trillion in mid-2017. This nearly matches the increase in government debt over the same period. (…) This poses a potential risk, particularly when that debt is in foreign currencies. Turkey’s corporate debt has doubled in the past ten years, with many loans denominated in US dollars. Chile and Vietnam have also seen large increases in corporate borrowing.” – bto: Und damit ist es ein Problem- und Krisenherd. Egal, was man nun dazu sagen möchte, es ist ein Thema, sobald Zinsen steigen oder die Wirtschaft sich abschwächt.
• “China has been the biggest driver of this growth. From 2007 to 2017, Chinese companies added $15 trillion in debt. At 163 percent of GDP, China now has one of the highest corporate-debt ratios in the world. We have estimated that roughly a third of China’s corporate debt is related to the booming construction and real-estate sectors.” – bto: Klartext – unproduktiv und vermutlich zu einem guten Teil faul.
• “Companies in advanced economies have borrowed more as well. (…)  corporate lending from banks has been nearly flat since the crisis, while corporate bond issuance has soared. The diversification of corporate funding should improve financial stability, and it reflects deepening capital markets around the world. Nonbank lenders, including private-equity funds and hedge funds, have also become major sources of credit as banks have repaired their balance sheets.” – bto: Da wundere ich mich allerdings sehr. Weil gleichzeitig die Banken weniger Eigenhandel machen dürfen, sind diese Märkte sehr illiquide. Hinzu kommt der hohe Anteil der “leveraged loans”, siehe Diskussion bei bto letzte Woche. Das ist dann schon ein erhebliches Risiko und das Gegenteil einer “improved financial stability”…

• “Having slogged through a painful period of repayment, foreclosures, and tighter standards for new lending, US households have reduced their debt by 19 percentage points of GDP over the past decade (Exhibit 4). But the homeownership rate has dropped from its 2007 high of 68 percent to 64 percent in 2018 — and while mortgage debt has remained relatively flat, student debt and auto loans are up sharply.” – bto: vier Prozentpunkte in zehn Jahren!!! Das war es? Klarer kann man nicht machen, dass es eben nicht möglich ist, zu deleveragen. Erklärt übrigens auch Donald Trump als POTUS.
• “Household debt is similarly down in the European countries at the core of the crisis. Irish households saw the most dramatic growth in debt but also the most dramatic decline as a share of GDP. (…)  Spain’s household debt has been lowered by 21 percentage points of GDP from its peak in 2009—a drop achieved through repayments and sharp cuts in new lending. In the United Kingdom, household debt has drifted downward by just nine percentage points of GDP over the same period.” – bto: Ja, es gab einen Abbau. Die Staatsschulden stiegen derweil in diesen Ländern deutlich.
• “In countries such as Australia, Canada, South Korea, and Switzerland, household debt is now substantially higher than it was prior to the crisis. (…) Today, household debt as a share of GDP is higher in Canada than it was in the United States in 2007.” – bto: was wiederum vor allem mit Immobilien zu tun hat. Klare Folge unserer Geldordnung.

• “Eurozone banks have led this retreat from international activity, becoming more local and less global. Their total foreign loans and other claims have dropped by $6.1 trillion, or 38 percent, since 2007 . Nearly half of the decline reflects reduced intra-eurozone borrowing (and especially interbank lending). Two-thirds of the assets of German banks, for instance, were outside of Germany in 2007, but that is now down to one-third.” – bto: Wie ich sagte, spiegelbildlich wuchsen die Target2-Forderungen der Bundesbank.

Die Risiken

McKinsey kommt damit zu dem vorsichtig optimistischen Schluss, dass das Finanzsystem stabiler sei. Andererseits weisen sie auch auf die Risiken hin: