Who the Heck are these Households that are Worth $90 Trillion?

Jon Blogosphere, Economy, Fiscal Policies, Market Commentary

Stalled Economy Performs Wealth Miracle, reports the Fed
One thing is working in this economy that has been stuck for years in a slow-growth mire: the inflation of asset prices. And the Federal Reserve, which has been engineering this miracle so adroitly, just released its latest progress report.
It reported today that the net worth of household and non-profits – they’re lumped together – rose in the third quarter by 1.8% or $1.59 trillion, to a record $90.2 trillion. That’s up 6% or $5.2 trillion from a year ago.
That 12-month increase of $5.2 trillion is larger than the GDP of Japan. Just by inflating asset prices. Why even bother to work? We’ll get to that in a moment.
Total household net worth is now nearly five times the size of US GDP. In 2007, at the top of the prior bubble, household net worth was $66.5 trillion, or about 4.5 times the size of GDP, before it all blew up.

This post was published at Wolf Street on Dec 8, 2016.