Private Property per Person (P^4)
Private Property per Person--PPPP (or P^4 for short)--is a new concept for the purpose of estimating the affordability of given living standards in nations.
To find it, you sum the market value of all physical property held by individuals, adjust those dollar values for inflation, and then divide by the number of individuals in a nation--arriving at the PPPP.
Absent government intervention, the average amount of private property held grows by more than 3% a year--and there is never a 4-year span of complete stagnation (where "per-person property" does not increase at all).
From Q3 1973 to Q1 1977, there was complete stagnation for almost 4 full years--indicating that government interventions were interfering with mankind's ability to produce new stuff: called, by economists, "stagflation."
Reagonomics of the 1980s provided an antidote to the 1970s stagflation which had been caused by government interventions. Under Reagan from 1983-1989, PPPP grew by over 6% a year to make up for the previous shortfall in wealth creation.
Americans of 1989 had 39% more private property than Americans of 1983.
But stagnation set in once again with the Bush I and Clinton Administrations:
From Q4 1989 to Q2 1998--almost 9 full years--there was complete economic stagnation.
Not to be outdone, for the first two terms of Bush II* and the first term of Obama--for 12 full years--there was complete economic stagnation.
*Of note is the illegitimate increase in the value of private property beginning in the second term of Clinton, when the Community Reinvestment Act was used by government to place people into houses, causing a housing bubble.
The illegitimacy of this increase in value is proven by the sharp deflation of the bubble down to 2012 levels (which were lower than even levels back in 2000). Another clue of illegitimate overvaluation is steep growth in income and wealth inequality.
In free markets, everyone eager to earn wages grows richer over time, preventing any steep rise in income inequality. But as government intervenes more and more--such as by putting people into houses--the rich begin to get richer faster (and the poor get richer slower).
It'd be better if common people get at least 3% more property each year, as was the case in the 1950s and 1960s--when the US government intervened less into the US economy--and when debt leverage was so low that private property was 80% to 90% as large as the sum total of all debt outstanding (in all credit markets).
It'd be better if we don't cycle through any 12-year spans of complete economic stagnation, with our future being swallowed by a growing hole of debt leverage. But to restore that kind of consistently-growing prosperity to America will require downsizing US government.
Unfortunately, the current "rationale" to keep up the size and scope of the US government (to fight, or wage war on, a lethal virus) may prevent progress in the needed debate about the fundamental economic sustainability--and the individual rights violations--of a highly-centralized, "command economy."
Reference
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Consumer Durable Goods, Current Cost Basis, Market Value Levels [BOGZ1LM155111005Q], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGZ1LM155111005Q
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), Households; Owner-Occupied Real Estate Including Vacant Land and Mobile Homes at Market Value, Market Value Levels [HOOREVLMHMV], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOOREVLMHMV
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average [CPIAUCNS], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Population Level [CNP16OV], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CNP16OV
Image Attribution
Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse: Cars [ https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/cars/ ]