Why Israel's Boom Is Actually A Bubble Destined To Pop

[shaayecanaan]

Quite a good article, its difficult to pick out just a few paragraphs, but well worth a read:-

As with most of the post-2009 bubbles that I am warning about, rising interest rates across the yield curve are the most likely catalyst that will pop Israel’s economic bubble. Ultra-low interest rates are the primary driver of Israel’s bubble, so the eventual ending of this condition will cause it to pop. Global and local interest rates are expected to rise in the coming years as the global economy recovers (which I believe is a false recovery or Bubblecovery), causing central banks to reduce their monetary stimulus policies that have been the source of the bubble-inflating “hot money” capital flows. For example, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to fully taper or end its QE3 program in 2014 and there are growing expectations of a Fed Funds rate hike as early as next year.

The popping of the U.S. stock and tech bubbles are another strong risk factor for Israel in the coming years, though this is likely to coincide with the popping of the overall post-2009 global bubble.

Here is what to expect when Israel’s economic bubble truly pops:

The property bubble will pop, causing prices to fall
Banks will experience losses on their mortgage portfolios
The tech bubble will pop in both Israel and the U.S., causing a wave of startup failures (particularly app and social media startups)
Technology and banking stock prices are likely to fall the hardest, which will drag the overall stock market lower
Economic growth will go into reverse
Unemployment will rise

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2014/04/29/why-israels-boom-is-actually-a-bubble-destined-to-pop/

FWIW, I think Australia and Canada are destined for the same outcome.

[King_David]

1. Article from April ?

INVESTING 4/29/2014 @ 1:11PM |32,592 views
Why Israel's Boom Is Actually A Bubble Destined To Pop

[Jefferson23]

3. So what? n/t

[King_David]

4. Read the IP guidelines is so what?

And it's dated for another thing.

[Jefferson23]

5. If it's such a big deal to you, alert on it. n/t

[King_David]

9. It's no big deal,

The rules aren't for everyone .

[Jefferson23]

10. Sounds like you're feeling marginalized, I suggest you alert Lithos.

It's that important to you, about the rules and all.

[shaayecanaan]

8. When I get upset about such things

I find one thing that helps is to drop my pants on the side of the road and wave my pudenda in the direction of oncoming traffic. Otherwise you might struggle to find someone who cares. It can be hard to get a response out of people at times.

[King_David]

11. pudenda ?

1.

pudenda
The Latin word for "shame," some Victorian clown thought it would be a great euphemism for female genitalia, possibly because he felt shame for wanting to see some.

May also have, over time, devolved into "pussy".
"'Pudenda' was Latin for 'shame'?"

"Yes, and 'vagina' meant 'scabbard'. Isn't studying Latin fun?"

by Gahmuret July 04, 2006


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pudenda

Words related to pudenda:

pussy vagina cunt vulva twat fanny genitalia labia snatch beef curtains bush camel toe latin poontang pubes clit euphemism female flower minge

[shaayecanaan]

12. not quite

pudenda

plural form of pudendum
(usually in the plural) A person’s external genitalia.  
(figuratively) The shameful parts of something.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pudenda

[Jefferson23]

2. Yep, from May of this year:

snip*Israel’s housing market is clearly one of the world’s bubbliest. Since 2007, home prices in the country are up nearly 84%.

snip*Robert Shiller, who won last year’s economics Nobel for his work on bubbles, says the Israeli market looks like a bubble. The IMF has warned that the probability of a “bust” is about 20%. In recent research, Goldman Sachs economists have spotlighted Israel’s outlier status, even among other countries that have seen “striking increases in house prices” since the global financial crisis (GFC).

snip*The main thing that makes Israel different is simple: There’s not a lot of usable land. A population of about 8 million lives in an area smaller than New Jersey or Sicily. But more to the point, the vast majority of land is owned, quasi-owned or administered by a state body, the Israel Land Administration. (More than 90% of it, according to the OECD.) And the state involvement makes for quite a bit of red tape, generating bottlenecks in the supply of new housing.

“Bottlenecks” might not be what you think of if you’re accustomed to hearing news reports about Israeli home construction in West Bank settlements. (In few other places are land-use decisions as freighted with historical, political, ethnic, religious, military, strategic, geopolitical and moral questions.) But building in settlements is only a small fraction compared to what happens in Israel proper. West Bank construction (not including East Jerusalem, though the rest of the world considers that part of the West Bank too) accounted for just 3.3% of the roughly 42,000 new dwellings completed in 2013.

http://qz.com/209093/israels-housing-bubble-is-glaringly-obvious/

[Jefferson23]

6. Palestine’s other land war

Real estate bubble in the West Bank makes Palestinian cities unlivable for the poor, deepening wealth inequality and eroding social unity

Halfway down a small hill by Ramallah’s bustling city centre, sandwiched between shops and three-story apartments, is an open plot of land. Thick grass grows over crumbling terraces, and small heaps of garbage nestle against the walls of the adjacent buildings.

Real estate broker, Hamza Alaa Akel said that the empty plot, like much of Ramallah, is owned by Palestinian-Americans living in the United States, and it doesn’t surprise him that they haven’t built there. The disused half-acre is worth $15 million, he said; “why build on it? Just sell it.”

Wealthy investors - mainly commercial firms and rich expatriate Palestinians - are buying up land in Ramallah and throughout the urban centres of the West Bank, driving a massive real estate bubble that threatens to price the poor out of Palestine’s cities and into its rural zones and East Jerusalem, where building permits are almost impossible to obtain, and home demolitions are commonplace.

Some people trace the explosion of land prices back to the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, when the administrative division of the West Bank effectively confined Palestinian development to Area A, the non-contiguous 17 percent of the territory overseen by the Palestinian Authority. Others say that the prices started rising when Salam Fayyad took over as prime minister in 2007 and instituted a slate of free-market policies, ostensibly to kick-start the Palestinian economy and pave the way to statehood.

Others say the biggest rise came still more recently. Ziad Nabali, a broker with An-Nabali wa Fares, a real estate development company in Ramallah founded by his family in 2001, said he bought an apartment in downtown Ramallah this year for $1.5 million. Even five years ago, Nabali said, it would have cost $300,000.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/palestine-s-other-land-war-1213915354#sthash.Yyo1yjD2.dpuf

[shaayecanaan]

7. Interesting - thanks nt

[shaayecanaan]

13. And a response in 972, of all places

http://972mag.com/israels-economy-has-problems-but-a-bubble-aint-one/90836/

In an article recently published on Forbes.com, Jesse Colombo argues that “Israel’s economic boom is not the miracle that it appears to be, but is actually another bubble that is similar to those that caused the financial crisis.” The article has been widely cited, both in Israel and abroad.

Worrying about an economic bubble neatly dovetails with Israelis’ characteristic eschatological anxiety, but in this case, it is baseless. Despite its many problems, Israel’s economy is not a bubble. It is an idea that must be refuted, because if it becomes of a part of conventional wisdom, it could lead to bad economic policy. Specifically, it could pressure the Bank of Israel (BoI) to raise interest rates and strengthen the shekel (Israel’s currency), plunging the economy into recession.

Israel is not the U.S.

Colombo asserts that in recent years, an economic bubble was inflated as a result of large capital inflows, that have strengthened the shekel. The BoI has struggled to block the shekel’s rise, by purchasing U.S. dollars and reducing interest rates. According to Colombo, this has caused rising inflation and property price bubbles.

On inflation, Colombo is simply mistaken. Inflation in Israel has actually fallen considerably. On property prices, the picture is more complex. Housing prices have gone sharply up, and they are currently above their long-term equilibrium level. But the trend is much less extreme than Colombo’s presentation implies. And he proceeds from this exaggeration to develop claims which are wholly unfounded.

[Jefferson23]

14. Talk about a difference of opinion, wow.

*Israel is still suffering from insufficient residential construction.

Isn't it suffering from affordable residential construction?

[shaayecanaan]

15. the response seems very optimistic

In particular the assertion that even if values slide no property in Israel will be in negative equity.

[Jefferson23]

16. Evidently and I'm in no position to argue with him otherwise, Time will tell, I guess.

[shaayecanaan]

19. I suppose so

Seems a funny place for a property bubble, Israel, given that "ownership" only means a lease of up to 48 years or thereabouts.

[Jefferson23]

21. Yea, Occupied R Us realtors contract runs pretty much like that.

[oberliner]

17. This article is from four months ago

The one in the OP is even older.

What inspired you to post these now?

[King_David]

18. They have negative outlooks

Of course...

[Jefferson23]

22. No one needs to go back four months to accomplish that...Bibi provides a wealth of repugnant

each news cycle.

[King_David]

23. This is about Israel not Bibi

You shouldn't continue to confuse them .
Such things breed hate.

[Jefferson23]

24. Perhaps you have a hard time who dictates policy, it's Bibi..the hater and his racist cabinet. n/t

[King_David]

25. I have heard all the posts on extreme rightists websites

That antiZionism is not AntiSemitism .

[Jefferson23]

26. Unrelated to my statements, you're off topic. No one here in this thread has brought up nor

implied a conversation about anti-Zionism.

[King_David]

27. Oh it's 100% relevant

[Jefferson23]

28. Ah, the emoticon relevance..so comforting for you when you're in a pinch. n/t

[King_David]

29. I never get in a "pinch"

I don't just come by this conflict as an outsider .

[Jefferson23]

30. You put youself in one the moment you added that unrelated comment and suggested Bibi

has nothing to do with this thread.

[King_David]

31. You mean this article / OP that is 5 months old

And posted here in IP inappropriately?

[Jefferson23]

32. Your pinch just increased two fold, you're still complaining about the date of the OP.

Too funny.

You still have the option of reporting the deep concern you have to Lithos, there
is no limit on when you can alert..as far as I know.

[Israeli]

33. That is debatable KD ....

...you are not really an " outsider " ....but you are not really an insider .

You are an American citizen are you not ?

What are your views on Jonathan Pollard ?

You want to be an insider ???........pack up your bags come join us ....the IDF is always looking for medics ...especially those with a MD .

Its not all about the beach and the gay bars KD ....a tourist visa does not make you an insider .

[shaayecanaan]

20. FOUR MONTHS AGO!!!!

[font size="80" color="red"]HOLY JESUS![/font]