Wednesday 22 June 2011

Post Traumatic Stress

"In Finland, the rising trend in house prices has flattened out since spring 2010.

The moderate rise in market interest rates has helped restore a more balanced position on the housing market.
Even so, the relative price of housing is still higher than the average for the past decade.

From the perspective of macro-stability,
the trend of recent years in household debt has displayed worrying features.
The proportion of highly indebted households grew rapidly throughout the first post-millennium decade.

Continued growth in household debt will undermine the ability of both households and the economy to adapt to economic disturbances.
"

Source: http://www.suomenpankki.fi/en/julkaisut/bulletin/financial_stability/Documents/B_2_11.pdf

To that statement, I see a worrying Bank of Finland that is relief that housing price somehow take a pause in 2010 however Bank of Finland seem to show all the element of a post traumatic type stress due to the unprecedented rise of debt level, when compared with what makes sense to compare to, the trend in debt over time.

I highlight the fact that recently bankers and politicians like to play the relative game by measuring data with other international data - i.e our debt is lower then the neighbor debt while failing to see and address the internal issues at the time when all warning are red.

That was my morning thought...I go back hibernating.