Will 2016 Be The End Of The Current Skyscraper Boom?
Submitted by Mark Thornton via The Mises Institute,
With more financing in place, the world’s tallest skyscraper is moving forward.
Recent media reports indicate that the final segment of financing has been obtained for the $1.2 billion Jeddah Tower project in Saudi Arabia. This is the financing that would be necessary to bring the project to record heights. Media reports also show that the structure has risen to more than seventy-five meters (246 feet) and construction is proceeding at an uninterrupted pace.
Above ground construction on the long delayed Jeddah Tower started in September 2014, but there was considerable doubt that the financing of the one kilometer (3,280.84 feet) tower could be obtained, given the shaky financial conditions in Saudi Arabia.
But the Jeddah Tower is only the latest phase in an enormous boom that began setting new records in 2014. As I reported nearly a year ago:
Super tall buildings, or skyscrapers, are being built at an astonishing rate. Ninety-seven buildings that exceed 200 meters (656 feet) high were constructed in 2014, setting a new record. The previous record was eighty-one buildings completed in 2011. The total number of skyscrapers in existence now is 935, a whopping 350 percent increase since the year 2000.
If completed as planned, the Jeddah Tower will be the tallest in the world. The International Business Times reports:
Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower in Jeddah is slated to become the world’s highest skyscraper when it is erected in 2020, knocking Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower from its perch as tallest building at 2,716 feet. The new tower will claim the title if it reaches its planned height of 3,280 feet. …The 200-floor Kingdom Tower will be part of a reported $8.4 billion project to construct Jeddah City. Construction of the skyscraper will entail 5.7 million square feet of concrete and 80,000 tons of steel …
Time for a Skyscraper Alert?
In other words, the Tower is just part of an even more massive project, and it’s time for a new skyscraper alert.
A skyscraper alert is a market indicator suggesting a significant economic crisis in the near future. This alert could have been issued earlier because the alert is based on the ground breaking ceremonies of a world record setting skyscraper, not the initial announcement of the project which occurred in August of 2011.
The completion of record-setting skyscrapers has long seemed to indicate the beginning of economic crises.
The Singer Building (September 1906) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Building (1907) began construction before the Panic of 1907 and were later completed in 1908 and 1909, respectively.
Construction began on 40 Wall Street (now the Trump Building), Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building all prior to the crash on Wall Street which began in the fall of 1929 only to have the record-setting buildings open in the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, 1930, and 1931, respectively.
Construction of the World Trade Center towers began in August 1968 and January 1969 and opened in December 1970 and January 1972, respectively. The economy was then in a bad recession and the Bretton Woods Crisis at hand. The Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) began construction in April of 1971 and opened in May of 1973 during the 1973–1974 stock market crash and the 1973 oil crisis.
Such alerts indicate looming danger in the economy of significance. However, the danger is not necessarily imminent. The next pivotal date is when the construction project reaches a point where it has broken the record. That date is difficult to estimate given the whims of construction. Media reports indicate that the Jeddah project will possibly be completed in 2020 without indicating whether that date is the record setting date, the completion date, or the opening ceremonies.
It is significant that the record being broken by the Jeddah Tower is the record set by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In some ways, the Burj Khalifa has become something of a symbol of the excesses of the last bubble.
Set to become the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in 2009 began to experience financial trouble and had to delay payment on its debt to finance construction. When the Burj Khalifa officially opened in January of 2010, the sovereign fund of the United Arab Emirates, which built the skyscraper, was broke and had to be bailed out by the sheikh of Abu Dhabi for $10 billion.
So, will this latest frenzy of new construction tip us off to the next bust? The skyscraper index is silent on the issue of timing so the dating of when the skyscraper curse is apparent is just guess work. It seems that the boom-bust cycle reaches its peak around the time the new record is set and is called a Skyscraper Signal, if imminent economic danger is looming. In most episodes, record breaking skyscrapers have their opening ceremonies when the economic crisis is readily apparent.
The important thing to remember is that skyscrapers do not cause economic crises. Rather they are just a very noticeable example of the distortions taking place throughout the economy when interest rates are keep artificially low by the central bank.
In addition to record breaking skyscrapers, there are many less perceptible changes taking place. Entrepreneurs are building bigger, longer term projects and production processes. Relative prices, i.e., interest, land, capital, and labor prices, are being distorted. Technology, nearly everywhere, is on the fast track. The economy is booming.
If the Skyscraper Curse is at work, then these distorted economic activities will soon be revealed to be malinvestments.
(4 votes)
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All those skyscrapers. Some serious Freudian Dick Measuring going on.
Bitch please.
http://m.fastcompany.com/3021945/5-buildings-that-look-like-vaginas
huh, that's odd, there's a building on that chart called "world trade center", supposed to be in new york, tallest as of 1972/73.
i tried finding it on google maps but i couldn't...wonder what happened to it?
Might be dune cunes paying for it, but European architect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Smith_%28architect%29
#whitegenocide
Better, it's being built by the BinLaden Group.
It was destroyed in 2001 in a false flag attack by the zionist bankers mafia in order to have the excuse to invade Irak that by then was selling oil in euros and was putting the dollar world reserve currency at risk.
There's only one place worth invading: RUSSIA.
Any other location US CAN NOT afford because it won’t pay for the invasion, even if the US succeed.
“Brace yourself! The American Empire is over. The descent is going to be horrifying!” — Chris Hedges
Trantor here we come.
.
It's the TRUMP TOWER thing goin on.
Banned Muslim Jeddah Tower
......lol
I think a more efficient use of funds would be to built a few ghost cities.
I applaud the constant need to prove that "mine is bigger than yours" because it's all working towards a functioning space ladder.
For sure.
What is the POINT? Other than dick measuring.
DavidC
It's actually low interest rates that fuel these towers and low wages.
The middle east is horrific in their treatment of the foreign workers
who build those towers.
See America after stock market crash, depression building.
And the elites build giant towers to show how bad they schlonged the public.
So.. according to this UAE has the biggest clit.
Who will win....the skyscraper gap?
They've yet to build the tower of Babel, so we have that to look forward to
That made me smile!
DavidC
Have you ever seen pictures of the headquarters of the European Union? It is known as the "Tower" building and was designed to resemble paintings of the biblical "Tower of Babel" by Pieter Bruegel.
http://deadlinelive.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Tower-Of-Babel-By-Pi...
Now, if perhaps you think the comparison and insinuation that this building design was entirely intentional in its reference to Bruegel's Tower of Bable is too much conjecture, then look at the following promo poster for the EU from 1992 -- see if that helps clarify the intent.
http://bilder.vgb.no/8970/img_4429067786def.jpg
The caption on the poster reads: "Europe: Many tongues, One Voice"Holy shit - following the exponentiation, the next one's gotta be twice the height of the Burj.
I was wondering what kind of foundation the Jeddah Tower in Dubai is built on. NYC is built on solid bedrock. Not so Dubai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeddah_Tower
The project looks extremely risky to me. If their models have the slightest error ...
dont they ever have earthquakes in that area-?
Whether one constructs a 100' tower or a 5,280' tower in the Middle East, what in the bloody hell is there worth viewing...?
I have eaten at the 123rd floor of the Burj and it was pretty cool to see the man made islands washing away from so high up.
A zip line from that restaruant down to one of those palm frond island dealies would be fairly rockin'...
$1.2b sounds awfully low, you can hardly buy a good sized cruise ship for that kind of money. Or a B-2 bomber with leather seats, and that doesn't even include service after 90 days.
It will end up costing 3 to 4 billion USD after all the construction defects are half-ass repaired. It will also take nearly 20 years to sort of "complete." Remember, this is Saudi, not Dubai.
Hmm, no mention at all of the Central Park Tower going up in midtown Manhattan?
And of course there is this detailed National Geographic piece on all of the recent and planned high-rise buildings in NYC.
Point certainly taken re the Skyscraper Omen, however.
Due diligence, please!
Not on my list of things to worry about,, tall buildings, who gives a fuck?...As is the current corruption of the CFTC on the PM manipulation and overall disintegration of the,, I'm all for it the fucking EMPIRE.... It is totally unsustainable as we all know....You can see it!! It's over....Cover your ass folks it's near..
They left the Tower or Babel off that list.
Please remain in the Building... Everything is Under Control
The Taipei 101 looks like they just stacked a bunch of take-out boxes on top of each other -- rather fitting if you like Chinese food.
These buildings are brothers to the Egyptian pyramids and last constructions of Rome.
They are monuments to the Parasite Class' theft and destruction of society except unlike the Pyramids and Mayan temples they will not last more than a few years or decades after the Excession swings into full gear.
I can understand if these ultra rich wanted obscene amounts of wealth so they can like perform a manned mission to Pluto, cure cancer, extend their lifespans or something that are inaccessible to the poor.
Instead they actually can't even remotely do any of those things or even having the vision to which shows how completely pathetic their wealth is beyond buying more of the same.
I don't quite get that International Business Times reference to 5.7 million square feet of concrete. Volume is measured in cubic units of length, as in cubic feet, cubic meters, cubic inches and so forth.
Anybody who would go into one of these buildings is insane...They keep building higher and higher, and like all else, at the same time they cut corners and costs, and the stuff being made is shoddier and shoddier...
This phenomenon causes me no end of frustration when I'm dealing with something like an appliance, or light fixture. But when that shit goes wrong, I'm not dropped 20-plus stories to the pavement below.
I'd trust a building like the Empire State Building, but for anything built in the past 30 years, I won't go above the third floor.