Florida - the historic epicenter of real estate booms and busts

What is it about Florida that lends itself to real estate booms, scams and crashes?

Florida 1925:

The Great Florida Land Bush

There was plenty of evidence that the Florida Land Boom was on swampy ground. Forbes magazine warned that Florida land prices were based solely upon the expectation of finding a customer, not upon any reality of land value. New York bankers, losing money over Florida investment, attacked the entire operation as one great sham. By 1925, there were other signs. Companies were laying off construction and other blue collar workers while the number of realtors and auto mechanics was still increasing.

Florida 2007:

Boom of condo crash loudest in Miami

Orlando and other Florida cities -- Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa and Sarasota among them -- also have huge condo gluts. With 4,440 condos listed for sale, Orlando has an unprecedented 29-month supply, and last month sales plummeted 64 percent lower than a year ago.

But Miami, with its unmatched volume and untold number of speculative buyers, is ripe for the hardest fall in the U.S.

PIMCO's Bill Gross calls for taxpayers to bail out failed housing gamblers. HousingPANIC calls for Bill Gross to pull his head out of his ass

Some days, I can't believe what I read from our "leaders".

For respected bond trader Bill Gross to be calling for a federal housing gambler bailout with taxpayer money is not only pathetic, reckless and wrong, it's actually immoral. Either Gross knows how bad it's gonna get and is in panic stage, or there's some way he'll make money off of a government bailout.

Why should taxpayers who go to work, pay their bills, read fine print, live within their means and make rational financial choices send their hard earned income to others who gamble, live beyond their means and make poor financial choices?

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HAVE PEOPLE GONE INSANE?

Sign the online petition against this crap here. We can help defeat this stupid thinking, just like the immigration law mess.

If the US government bails out failed flippers and housing gamblers in ANY way, then it will officially be over. Rome will have burned. And the US government will no longer be deserving of your support. But I have faith. Even George Bush and Congress aren't this stupid, reckless and corrupt. Right? If Bush or Congress try to increase their record-low ratings with a housing gambler bailout, my prediction is that it'll backfire worse than Schiavo.

Here's Gross and his "wisdom". I need to go puke now. And I'll also try to figure out how Gross's bailout call might directly financially benefit PIMCO and Bill Gross.

The ultimate solution, it seems to me, must not emanate from the bowels of Fed headquarters on Constitution Avenue, but from the West Wing of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Why is it possible to rescue corrupt S&L buccaneers in the early 1990s and provide guidance to levered Wall Street investment bankers during the 1998 LTCM crisis, yet throw 2,000,000 homeowners to the wolves in 2007?

If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner?

This rescue, which admittedly might bail out speculators who deserve much worse, would support millions of hard working Americans whose recent hours have become ones of frantic desperation.

Now here's someone sane on Gross being a doof:

More Bailouts Could Bring Disaster Down the Road

In my humble opinion Mr. Gross is right about only one thing: that Mr. Bernanke is unable to eventually stop a destructive housing deflation.

At least now the pundits are admitting that a housing deflation is at the heart of the economic problems. That is a watershed event.

But for the “government”, which I thought was using taxpayer money (except for the $9 trln in debt it has borrowed), to bail out malinvestment is only to increase the problem. If you don’t punish your child for playing with matches, he may one day burn the house down.

Of course Mr. Gross, being worth $500 mln plus, really doesn’t worry about how much of his tax dollars are going into the abyss; he just wants to keep earning his fees.