Bank lending review, $US, Dementia signs

I’m using monthly totals this week to take some of the ‘noise’ out of the weekly numbers surrounding year end:

Pretty clear here there’s been almost no loan growth over the last year or so:


The growth rate of real estate lending also shifted around election time:


Consumer credit, however, expanded into year and as consumers borrowed to sustain spending as income growth fell short:


Large trade deficit:


Large trade surplus:

clinical dementia:

“Problems these experts say they have observed include rambling speech; episodes of slurred speech; failure to recognize old friends; frequent repetition of the same concepts; decreased fine motor coordination; difficulties reading, listening and comprehending; suspect judgment, planning, problem solving and impulse control; and markedly declining vocabulary in recent years, with over reliance on superlatives, according to the letter.”