Americans have been too busy to fire up a new recession

THE US recovery has run for eight years and this often begs the question: When is the next recession? The answer is: Probably not for some time.

Recessions don't spring from the brow of Zeus; they're the unwinding of excess, the hangover from last night's party. And almost everyone in the US is still recovering from the last binge - the one that blew in 2007/08 - they haven't had time to fire up a new one.

Household leverage continues to fall; debt has been cut to 78 per cent of GDP (as of December 2016) from a peak of 98 per cent in early-2008.