What Not To Do In A Balance Sheet Recession

... borrow more.

If you're having to reduce your standard of living because you've got too much debt, the answer is not more debt. While households and businesses understand this and are deleveraging (paying down their debt) the Federal government is more than taking up the slack. Dig this chart from Option Armageddon.


Here's a bit of the analysis to go with it.

It’s been said that the income statement is the past, but the balance sheet is the future. Our balance sheet is getting worse. Those who see “green shoots” believe the crisis is abating. But they don’t understand its origin: a credit bubble that, in the aggregate, continues to inflate. The equity value of our economy is going down—think the stock market and housing equity (see below). At the same time our debt is going up. In other words, America’s leverage continues to expand.

It's crazy, man. Just crazy.