Housing Bubble

The media can try to hide reality all it wants. But an economic collapse is here. It will trigger another stock market crash just as it did in the early ’90s, the Tech Bubble, and the Housing Bubble. 

While popular perception holds that debt-ridden, broke millennials are the ones driving the rental market, the truth is far more nuanced... and depressing for those who still cling breathlessly to The American Dream. The truth is millions of Americans were reduced to neo-feudal serfs by the financial crisis, and how those who ruined the economy profited handsomely from the process.

"Prosper is the market leader in peer-to-peer lending-a popular alternative to traditional loans and investing options. Prosper allows people to invest in each other in a way that is financially and socially rewarding. We cut out the middleman to connect people who need money with those who have money to invest...so everyone prospers!"

The suicide rate in Alberta has increased dramatically in the wake of mounting job losses across the province. According to the chief medical examiner's office, 30 per cent more Albertans took their lives in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. "This is staggering," said Mara Grunau, who heads the Centre for Suicide Prevention.  "It's far more, far exceeds anything we would ever have expected, and we would never have expected to see this much this soon."

“There have been arrests and crackdowns before on grass-roots labor organizations here,” one activist, He Shan, said in a telephone interview from Shenzhen, a mainland city that abuts Hong Kong. “But this is the most concentrated, the most serious. For us, this is unprecedented.”

The mainstream media is increasingly suggesting that we have once again entered into a 'Goldilocks Economy.' The problem is that in the rush to come up with a 'bullish thesis' as to why stocks should continue to elevate in the future, they have forgotten the last time the U.S. entered into such a state of 'economic bliss.' You might remember this: "The Fed's official forecast, an average of forecasts by Fed governors and the Fed's district banks, essentially portrays a 'Goldilocks' economy that is neither too hot, with inflation, nor too cold, with rising unemployment." - WSJ Feb 15, 2007. Of course, it was just 10-months later that the U.S. entered into a recession followed by the worst financial crisis since the 'Great Depression.'

Hong Kong's once-upon-a-time raging housing bubble just got its last rites after November home sales sank to a record low as an imminent interest rate in the US this month scared away prospective buyers. According to Land Registry data, reported by SCMP, November saw 2,826 registered residential transactions, down 14.4% from October and 41.7% less than in November last year. This was the lowest print in the history of the series.

The gap between real house prices and real earnings is even wider than it was in Housing Bubble 1. History (and common sense) suggest that housing prices will once again fall sharply until the black line of house prices is well below the red line of real earnings. To expect anything different is unrealistic and highly dangerous to one's financial well-being.

Who could have seen that coming? It appears, for America's northern brethren, low oil proces are unequivocally terrible. Against expectations of a flat 0.0% unchanged September, Canadian GDP plunged 0.5% - its largest MoM drop since March 2009 and the biggest miss since Dec 2008. With Canada's housing bubble bursting, it's time for the central planners to get back to work and re-invigorate the massive mal-invesment boom (and ban pawning of luxury goods).

It is Pedro's "courage to write" what Bernanke conveniently forgot to add in his memoir, that makes this review so much more memorable than the generic sycophantic tripe written by his "access journalism" peers.

Forgotten what 2008 was like? What's coming will be far worse.

Price for Thanksgiving dinner pre-Fed: $0.50

Price for Thanksgiving dinner 102 years after establishement of the Fed: $50

"We have determined that applying a negative rate was a more transparent and fairer solution for our clientele. This decision on negative rates is costing us a lot of money -- pretty much the equivalent of our entire annual profit last year."