OK, Mike, he got back to me.
The Fed Flow of Funds data only goes back to 1942.
I'm trying to figure out what we can use for data prior to that date.
Remember, I'm just trying to calculate consumer credit as % of total GDP.
The future always casts a shadow on the present.
In the period prior to BankAmericard (now Visa), the source of much of what we now call consumer lending was actually managed by non-bank entities - often by the companies selling the products. I doubt those data have been agregagted, so I wouldn't trust any data sets that precede that time. Of course, we still can get credit through those same sources, but it's less common now. Even recvolving credit at most department stores is handled through a third party like GE Capital.Originally Posted by JonLaw
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
I am not sure that would qualify as debt because no money was lent. Goods were sold with delayed payment. With bankcards an unsecured loan of money is made because the sellers bank accounts are credited with the value of the sale less the credit card transaction fee.
Period N-Spirit N-Unrest C-events L-events %Progress Party Paradigm 1436-1459 (U) 0.38 1.15 1460-1487 (C) 0.26 0.76 1488-1520 (H) 0.77 0.83 1521-1557 (A) 1.63 1.10 1558-1579 (U) 0.62 0.60 1580-1602 (C) 0.22 1.08 1603-1626 (H) 1.45 0.40 1627-1650 (A) 1.97 1.79 1651-1674 (U) 0.44 1.02 1675-1703 (C) 0.38 0.74 1704-1720 (H) 0.64 0.12 1721-1746 (A) 2.17 1.35 1747-1773 (U) 0.49 0.97 1774-1792 (C) 0.90 0.84 0.42 0.54 NA Progress 1793-1823 (H) 0.52 0.36 0.57 0.40 53% Progress 1824-1842(A) 1.49 1.64 0.43 0.95 33% Freedom 1843-1859 (U) 1.14 0.42 0.41 0.05 33% Freedom 1860-1873 (C) 0.78 1.00 0.44 0.93 91% Progress 1874-1896 (H) 0.87 1.71 0.53 0.17 65% Progress 1897-1919 (A) 0.90 1.59 0.63 0.58 70% Freedom 1920-1929 (U) 1.21 0.54 0.59 0.16 9% Freedom 1930-1946 (C) 0.76 1.46 0.29 0.98 88% Progress 1947-1964 (H) 0.94 0.61 0.46 0.31 56% Progress 1965-1984 (A) 1.21 1.49 0.35 0.63 40% Freedom 1985-2007 (U) 0.85 0.79 0.69 0.43 0.33 Freedom High 0.87 0.67 0.52 0.29 0.58 Progress Awakening 1.56 1.49 0.47 0.72 0.48 Freedom Unraveling 0.73 0.78 0.56 0.22 0.25 Freedom Crisis 0.51 0.88 0.52 0.73 0.79 Progress A vs. non A p < 5.2% -- -- -- -- -- A+C vs. H+U p < -- 0.37% 4.4% 0.03% -- -- A+U vs. C-H p < -- -- -- -- 0.7% --
The table above presents empirical turnings in terms of cultural, social and political measures. Economics is implicitly included because economic turnings points are used as one of the criteria for turning point selection. Average values for each kind of turning are given. The spirituality or religiosity of a period is measured in terms of the frequency of spiritual events. These are mostly the founding of new protestant, denominations and religious moments (e.g. the crusades) and important (i.e. listed in religious timelines) instances of visionary or mystical experiences. The production of important religious books (e.g. The Fundamentals in 1910, which began the "fundamentalist movement", in part a response to historical assessments of Jesus such as Schweitzer's The Quest for the Historical Jesus of 1906 (another event on the list).
As measure of social turmoil, the frequency of popular unrest events like labor actions, popular revolts, race riots and other civil disturbances..
Finally there is a political measurement of the turnings. Ideological is assessed in terms of the frequency of events deemed as "conservative" or "liberal" using an arbitrary criterion designed to reflect Arthur Schlesinger Senior's notions that went into the determination of his "liberal" and "conservative" eras. This tool was created in order to apply his concept to other periodizations like turnings to see how they rate in terms of Schlesinger's categories. Also shown is the fraction of the period in which the Progress party holds the white house. The Progress party is defined as Republicans before 1913 and Democrats after 1932.
Each measures was normalized by dividing it by its 100-year trend value into order to keep all the data on a similar scale. Normalization was not needed for the percent Progress party measure as it was already range-bound.
Three comparisons are made at the bottom of the table. The significance of the finding is given as the p value (probability that the observed difference arose from chance).
The findings were that social moment turnings (2Ts and 4Ts) collectively showed more unrest, more liberal and less conservation political events than did the non-social moment turnings (1Ts and 3Ts).
Although 2T and 4Ts are both social moments, they are different in that 2Ts show less than average values of the %Progress party measure consistent with the creations of a Freedom paradigm during 2Ts. 2Ts are differe
