The Economist "Biggest Bubble in History"!

[edhopper]

There are those who deny we are even in a housing bubble. But this article in The Economist says it's the biggest bubble in world history;

http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4079027

[xray s]

1. our entire economy is a bubble

The housing market...federal budget deficit...health care and drug prices...energy...stock prices...war profits..everything in the economy is built on a lie, that we can go on like this forever and never pay any consequences.

The economy has turned into a cartoon. A bizarre world of fools being exploited by grifters getting rich while emptying your pocket, your house, your bank account and your pension fund.

If you want to see how utterly insane we have become, watch 5 minutes of Jim Cramer's Wacky World of Stocks on CNBC tonight.

In a word, we are fucked.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Housing is just the latest pyramid scheme, after the collapse

everybody will ask, "how could this have happened, why didn't we see this coming?" Just like they did after ever other pyramid scheme collapsed.

The housing bubble is classic, it relies on 1. a ready supply of cheap money, 2. The next bigger sucker.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I see signs of it starting to burst

or at least stretch at the seams. I work for a termite company, and this is usually our busiest time of year, pretreating new construction and treating houses that are being sold. We were busier in February, which is traditionally our slowest month. We are scrambling to find jobs; the realtors are sending us very few estimates, and its not because they don't like us; its because houses just aren't selling very fast. And there have been a few times when the deal fell through at the very last minute.

[Turbineguy]

4. What about the Tokyo bubble of the 80's

You could buy 2 square blocks of Tokyo, unless you'd rather buy Canada.

On CNBC this morning: Europeans are buying US real estate with a nice 40 percent discount thanks to Bushonomics. If prices start going down, more foreigners will step in to snap up our bargains.

$600,000 for a 40 year old dump in L.A. Such a deal!

[edhopper]

5. If the Europeans are buying as speculators

They are usually the first to run when things go south.

[Vitruvius]

6. Housing may be just the first wave of the great Bu$h INFLATION --

and not a bubble. For example: New York City housing prices have skyrocketed since 2000 -- in dollars. In Euros, NYC housing prices have not gone up at all.

What's going on? The dollar is tanking -- thanks to the huge Bu$h budget deficits and trade deficits. The result has to be inflation -- same as always. And that inflation has shown up in housing first.


Hence, there's a good chance housing prices will not come down; instead, the price of everything else will go up -- as the Bu$h inflation spreads. And destroys the value of the wages, savings, pensions, and social security of the working class and middle class.




P.S. (upon edit) In any case, housing COSTS will stay high -- if housing prices DO go down, it will be because interest rates go UP; meaning that the banks -- and not the homeowners who are selling -- will get the big bucks when a home is sold.