The first chart of interest comes from Calculated Risk and it shows the percentage of equity withdrawal as a percentage of disposable income and in absolute dollar amounts.

You can find the chart here and the post that was built around it here.

Looking at this chart will make you realize how dependent the US economy was on rising real estate prices over the last 5 years.

Another chart of interest comes from Demography Matters. It shows how many woman in various countries think having no children as being the ideal. Looking at this chart, it is hard to imagine that Germany demographics are ever going to get better. As Edward Hugh says…

Now what is striking here is the situation in the German speaking countries, where the percentage in Austria who are willing to answer “none” is now 12.6%, while in Germany it is 16.6, and in both cases this is a large and significant change over the previous generation.