Monday, August 3, 2009

Five Years of Real GDP per Capita Lost

Take the Real GDP figures from this table, divide by the population totals is this table, and you get real per Capita GDP. Now at a level last seen in Q3 2004.



And down 5% year over year (the largest drop since the Great Depression).



Regardless of any rebound we may see next quarter, this is one for the ages. But why the equity rebound? Dr. Doom, Marc Faber, with as good an explanation as I've heard (via FT):

Faber, meanwhile, also sees a continuing equity rally — mainly because economic conditions “will continue to deteriorate and necessitate additional stimulus packages and further quantitative easing (read money-printing)”.
So equities will remain attractive... that is until the economy recovers.

Ah, the joys of investing.

Source: BEA

2 comments:

  1. Weird. I was reading Hazlitt's "The Conquest of Poverty" over the weekend and was going to ask you for that exact chart.

    Any chance of opening it up a bit to include all of the last century?

    Thanks as always Jake. Your charts are second to none!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would also be interested in an expanded time horizon, please.

    ReplyDelete