Sweet!

I'm on a new project: trying to reverse engineer the average length of loans from debt and debt service data. So I rounded up some data, converted it all to annual (to match the "monetary interest paid" series) and changed the aggregation method to "end of period" (the same way debt series are figured), checked it quick, and downloaded the FRED data as an Excel file.

Happy as a pig in shit, I glanced at the file and right away noticed that FRED now shows the calculations as part of the data descriptions in the header area. Here's a clip from the file, where I convert debt service payments as a percent of DPI to debt service payments in billions:

At left, an identification tag. On the right, the formula in highly readable format, showing the unique series identifiers for the data I used in the calculation. Next, the formula again, this time showing the units I had chosen for the data. Finally, the data frequency -- "Annual" -- which is great, because I changed it from the default.

With this information, people can figure out what I did. People can duplicate my graph, if they want. This is perfect. This is how it should be. Pig in shit.

Then I glanced at the values for my calculated debt service numbers. Horrors! My numbers were smaller instead of bigger than the percent values I started with. After an "Oh, man" I took another look at FRED's documentation of my formulas.

Bingo: I divided by DPI-in-billions where I should have multiplied, and multiplied by 100 where I should have divided. And I figured out the problem from within the spreadsheet. FRED just made my life easier.

Thank you, FRED. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here's a question

I. Household Debt in Billions

Searching FRED for household debt the other day, I came across
Households and nonprofit organizations; consumer credit; liability, Level
and
Households and nonprofit organizations; home mortgages; liability, Level
and
Households and nonprofit organizations; debt securities and loans excluding home mortgages and consumer credit; liability, Level

Tidy package, I thought. Mortgages, plus consumer credit, plus everything other than mortgages and consumer credit. That's all there is.

Those three should add up to Households and nonprofit organizations; debt securities and loans; liability, Level, I thought. I wonder if it does.

Yup. On the graph below, I show the big number as a wide black line. I show the three components, added together, as a white line over top of the black. The white line runs right down the middle of the black line. The three components add up to the "debt securities and loans" number. Nothing left out. Nothing extra. It's perfect:

Mortgage Debt plus Consumer Credit plus Other equals Household Debt

(Click the graph to see it bigger.)

But that's not my question.

II. Household Debt relative to DPI

I remember seeing Household Debt Service data at FRED, back when a search for it turned up only four series: mortgage debt, consumer debt, the total of those two, and a "financial obligations" series that counted things that were not really debt (as it seemed to me, at least).

I remember ignoring the Financial Obligations series, and just working with the three Debt Service series. You could take Mortgage Debt Service and Consumer Debt Service and add the two together, and the total would be equal to the Household Debt Service series. Still is, in fact:

Mortgage Debt Service plus Consumer Debt Service equals Household Debt Service

The wide black line shows Household Debt Service. The narrow green line that follows exactly the same path is the sum of the two components. The two components add up to the "Household Debt Service" number. Nothing left out. Nothing extra. It's perfect.

(Again,  you can click the graph to see it bigger.)

That's not my question, either.

III. My Question

When you add up the components of Household Debt in billions, there are three components. But when you add up the components of Household Debt as a percent of DPI, there are only two components. The one calculation includes, and the other apparently overlooks "debt securities and loans excluding home mortgages and consumer credit". How can this be right?

That's my question.

I found the Series Analyzer and housedebt/about but it'll take me years to figure out if the answer is there...

If the answer is that "consumer credit" and "consumer debt" are two different things, wow, I need a link.

Wow, I need a drink.