October 26, 2006

School textbook mention in the year 2500: The Great Housing Ponzi Scheme Bubble and Crash


In your business, if your sales collapsed 40% to 50% in a year, would you call that a soft landing? Or would you think the rapture had occurred or the world had just ended?

I don't know about you HP'ers, but in my 15-year marketing career, I've never suffered a sales decline year over year. So to see the US and city by city numbers we're seeing - 30%, 40%, 50% declines in home sales - man, those are some ridiculous, incredible and epic numbers.

Soft landing my a*s. Housing has fallen off of a cliff, and there's no way for the NAR, MSM or REIC to spin it otherwise (try as they might).

Bottom line: These are historic days for housing, which will be written about for generations to come.

The Great US Housing Crash of 2006 - 20??. Think about it - 400 years later kids still study the Dutch Tulip Mania in school. I propose that kids in the year 2500 will be studying what happened these past few years in the US and around the world. And as we do in regards to the Dutch, they'll shake their little heads and ask:

"What were they thinking? The fools!"

'May you live in interesting times' it has been said. And so we do. And so we do.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Next comes deflation or stagflation. I looks to me like deflation. Fewer will have the ability to purchase $85,000 cars and million homes. The prices, of goods other than homes, are already dropping all over. I've had vendors call that are desperate for business. They've offered to drop prices 25%.

Anonymous said...

"teacher - why didn't the government regulate lending practices back then? And why would the fed lower rates to 1% - didn't they know that would cause a massive asset bubble?"

Anonymous said...

Are there any Dutch-speaking HPers? I wonder what that old document says. "Tulip prices always go up"?

Anonymous said...

"kids studying the tulip bubble in school"

that is where you are wrong my friend and that is the problem

there will be nothing taught to youngsters in a formal setting about any economic mania - if there is any teaching at all about this kind of bullsh*t, it will be done at home by the kid's parent. public education systems do not address basic ecnomics anymore - if they did, the general public would have been able to see through all this bullsh*t from the get go.

want your kids to avoid these kinds of messes in the future? try to teach them yourself because no one else will and be prepared for the idea that they just won't listen to you despite your own experiences. you know the old saying "the older I get, the smarter my father seems to be".

Anonymous said...

yeah but your kid will know why little joey has two mommies.

Anonymous said...

Ivana Hump! Ivana Hump!

What could have been more exciting than an 80-story phallic symbol on the Las Vegas skyline?

Alas, funding for this massive erection has not materialized. But the IVANA dream remains.

Anonymous said...

In the year 2500 the remaining human inhabitants---clustered around the Canadian Yukon, Iceland and Spitzbergen---will be enraged at us because of the wasteful profligacy of guzzling down all the oil and ruining the ecosphere.

They won't give a crap about the housing bubble.

Anonymous said...

you are not alone brokersleaveyoubroke

the best a young man can do is seek out some level-headed, ego free, old dudes to fish, drink or play cards with and pick their brains and thoughts. absorb grasshopper, soak it up. experience and reflection trumps ed-u-ma-ca-tion anyday.

Anonymous said...

Might I make a suggestion for you to add a comment about this topic in the new time capsule feature on yahoo.com. It might make a worthy byline or footnote to what has been a roller-coaster decade for the housing market. Thanks