August 29, 2007

TIME Magazine FINALLY allows a housing crash article into their fine magazine (chuckle chuckle): "The value of our homes is collapsing"

I still can't believe these yahoos at TIME haven't put the housing crash or current debt crisis on their cover yet. Even from a business perspective, since the housing crash effects nearly every person in America, seems like they'd want to sell a few magazines.


But like the NAR, I think TIME is run by monkeys.

Anyway, here's their first article on the housing crash, kinda, since it's listed as "commentary". Hey, it's a first step. Anyone want to guess when we finally get the cover?

Your House Is Worth Less? Good

The last time we had this feeling of financial vertigo was when the Internet bubble popped seven years ago. But this is much worse: the value of our homes is collapsing. For generations, rising home prices have been central to our general sense of well-being.

So why is the real estate collapse a good thing?

First, because the collapse of any financial bubble can be interpreted as a morality play: greed gets its comeuppance. Subprime mortgages play the role that used to be played by junk bonds. They represent easy money--too easy, in retrospect. Borrowed money, if it gets out of hand, puts economic history on speed: everything rises faster, then collapses harder. Foolish lenders become the enablers of foolish borrowers.

In the 1990s, people came to believe that stock prices would rise forever. They learned differently. And now we are learning differently about real estate as well. Whenever the price people will pay today depends on the belief that other people will pay even more tomorrow, you've got a bubble. It takes only a slight letdown in those expectations to send the whole delightful, self-feeding process into reverse.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

And again, 7 years later, people who buy into the stock market think it will continue to rise forever no matter how bad the news is. Why is bad news good today?

Anonymous said...

Theyre still embraassed about their GaGa for Housing cover

Anonymous said...

For generations, rising home prices have been central to our general sense of well-being.

BULLSH&T!

For generations, rising real incomes have been central to our general sense of well-being.

What Great Economy?

Median household income rose 0.7 percent to $48,200, adjusted for inflation, the Census Bureau reported. But more people had to be at work in each household to get there.

That's because median earnings for individuals working full-time year-round actually fell for the third consecutive year. For men, earnings slipped 1.1 percent to a median of $42,300, while for women, earnings sank 1.2 percent to a median of $32,500.


Get that? In the wonderful BushEconomy wages have gone DOWN THREE YEARS IN A ROW IN A "RECOVERY'?

"In 2006, the poverty rate remained higher, and median income for non-elderly households remained $1,300 lower, than in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a statement. "It is virtually unprecedented for poverty to be higher and the income of working-age households lower in the fifth year of a recovery than in the last year of the previous recession."

So who exactly has been waging "Class Warfare?'

All that non-existent paycheck has been replaced by the hypercapitalist class with pseudoincome--Debt.

Maybe finally now, the average sheeple will understand that they've been getting sheared by Voodoo Kudlow Republican Economics for decades?

Oh yes, things really were different---in quantitative fact---under Clinton. (But still nothing like the 60's under JFK/LBJ)

Anonymous said...

It's said that when a trend makes the cover of Time Magazine it's usually over.

Anonymous said...

For generations, rising home prices have been central to our general sense of well-being.

Yea, that's pretty retarded. Housing is a COST. How is rising costs good? Like saying:

"For generations, rising energy prices have been central to our general sense of well-being".

Anonymous said...

"It is virtually unprecedented for poverty to be higher and the income of working-age households lower in the fifth year of a recovery than in the last year of the previous recession."
________________________________

Gotta laugh at this one. I think we've been in a recession all along. It's just that the Bushcos have so slickly manipulated the PR surrounding government statistics on unemployment and the interest rate that people still believe the stats to be true!

Anonymous said...

Time used to be an interesting magazine, now it's just a right-wing, pump-up-the-volume rag. Think I'm exaggerating? Let's take a look at their right wing wankers (errrr, columnists):

Joe Klein (openly despises Dems)

Krauthammer (speaks for itself)

Bill Kristol (oh my gawd)

Andrew Sullivan (cheerleader for Iraq war, now, not so much).

And of course, within the pages of this "magazine" you can find ads for the EIB network, featuring Rush Limbaugh's mug.

My father loves his Time magazine. That's really all you need to know.

Anonymous said...

Fat, stupid, intellectually lazy Americans won't abandon their precious capitalism until 51% feel the sting of poverty and extreme downward mobility. Of course, even if only 5% can afford to live well nothing will change. Look at South America and see what extreme capitalism looks like.

Socialism and redistribution of wealth is the only way. Ideally forced upon the 5% violently.

Anonymous said...

It is absolutely wonderful that the MSM is BEGINNING to talk about *collapsing* home values as a POSITIVE.

Thank God it's finally happening! And more power to them with this line of thought!

Anonymous said...

To Time -please get bent and hurl yourselves off the nearest cliff.

Anonymous said...

To Time- Light yourselves on fire.

Anonymous said...

Keith,

What do you have against monkeys? Surely they are better than the cretins at Time.

Anonymous said...

TIME covers
2005: "Why we're going gaga over real estate" - peak of the housing bubble, strong sell signal
2011(?): "Homeownership - the American nightmare" - end of the bust, strong buy signal