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The following chart shows real nonfinancial corporate business credit market liabilities per capita (September 2013 dollars).Click to enlarge.An exponential trend channel did not fit the data well at all but a parabolic trend sure did.Parabolic moves are not sustainable over the long-term. This is a mathematical certainty. About the only thing open for debate here is the timing of the failure(s).There's a reason that...

The following chart shows the natural log of annual change in the CPI less food and energy. When using logs, exponential growth (or in this case, decay) is seen as a straight line.Click to enlarge.No matter how hard the Fed tries, it cannot seem to break through the top of the decaying trend channel. So what's the latest tactic? Taper! Good luck on that. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't.As seen in the following chart,...

Click to enlarge.What's Plan B?See Also:Real Yields: Why They Are Falling (Musical Tribute)Source Data:St. Louis Fed: Custom Cha...

The following chart shows real GDP.Click to enlarge.Four exponential trend lines and their growth rates have been added.Note that each time an exponential trend fails, it is replaced with an exponential trend of lesser quality. What doesn't kill us, doesn't make us stronger. Go figure.The next chart shows the long-term trend of those growth rates. I'm using the midpoint of my hand-picked expansions as the x-axis.Click...

The following chart shows the annual change in the semiannual average of the producer price index for finished goods.Click to enlarge.1. Heckle the Fed for achieving long-term "stable price" certainty?2. Heckle Jeremy Siegel for warning us that the Fed would raise rates well before 2014?3. Heckle CNBC for warning us what the taper would do to interest rates?4. Heckle Shadowstats for misguided hyperinflation theories?So...

Click to enlarge.The blue line shows the annual average of the St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index and the Kansas City Financial Stress Index.The red line shows the negative of the annual average of the real S&P 500 Index (December 2013 dollars).1. The key to maintaining the stock market's currently lofty level is to keep the financial stress at a near record low. That's right. Keep it there permanently. Just say...

...then we are officially @#$%ed.Credit growth (in red) is slowing.Savings growth (in blue) is slowing.Without either of those two, I guess we'll just have to rely on wage growth. Good luck on that one. Sigh.This is not investment advice.See Also:Low CD Rates: Lending Drought and Savings MonsoonSource Data:St. Louis Fed: Custom Cha...

Click to enlarge.The data in red (left scale) shows bank credit of all commercial banks divided by total savings deposits at all depository institutions. Think of it as a lending to savings ratio proxy.The data in black (right scale) shows the 5-year CD rate (national rate of banks).The data in blue (right scale) shows the 5-year treasury yield.I would argue that the red data is a primary driver of interest rates (perhaps...