‘Lost Couple of Decades’ Looming for U.S. Economy

The U.S. economy may be just as sluggish during the next 20 years as Japan’s economy was in the last 20, according to Comstock Partners, a money manager founded and run by Charles Minter.

Stimulus programs and a surging money supply aren’t likely to “solve a problem of excess debt generation that resulted from greed and living way beyond our means,” the firm wrote yesterday in an unsigned report on its Web site. “We could wind up with a lost couple of decades.”

The CHART OF THE DAY shows U.S. total debt and gross domestic product since 1952, along with the ratio between them, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. The ratio rose in the first quarter to 372 percent even as household borrowing dropped for a second straight quarter, an unprecedented streak. (more)