Thanks to the unprecedented monetary largess of central banks, U.S. corporations have engaged in a borrowing binge since the Global Financial Crisis. Total outstanding non-financial U.S. corporate debt is up by an incredible $2.5 trillion or 40 percent since its 2008 peak, which was already a precariously high level to begin with. Such a big deal has been made about how much “deleveraging” has supposedly occurred in the U.S. economy since 2008, but there is zero evidence of that to be found in U.S. corporate debt – on the contrary, corporations continue levering up as if the crisis never even happened.
