patrick.net

MCMSinger says

And by the way - If I had a time machine - I would choose to live in the 1960’s or the 1970’s - I’d happily give up microwaves, the idiot box, internet, gps & cancer causing phones in return to a better opportunity to reach my potential in terms of education, career and finances. Not to mention I would be able to eat more natural foods - not the chemically infested foods we have today.

The idiot box and microwaves existed in the 60's and 70's, so you wouldn't have to give those up. As for cancer, it'd be a wash with all the cigarette smoke that would be in every establishment you go to. But hey, the grass is always greener, right?

MCMSinger says

The women’s right movement was funded by The Rockefellers to be able to tax half of the population & to have kids in school at an earlier age so they can indoctrinate them how to think. Feminism was a CIA operation to destabilize society between the genders & break up the family. Please research the REAL agenda behind movements before proclaiming how positive their effects have been.

Are you down there? Hello? You keep digging that hole so deep I can't see you anymore!

You've made your point. You think house prices will fall 90-95%. Fair enough. They could, but really anything could happen. Small essays filled with conspiracy theories aren't going to convince anyone, just let things play out.

First of all thank you for the thought proving post. It doesn't matter much what I think about the predictions you make per say, and they are bold, rather what one thinks of the fundamentals of your argument.

I believe at heart your post was a critic of fractional reverse banking and perhaps to put too fine a point on it, by extension, the rule of 78s

http://www.wdfi.org/wca/consumer_credit/credit_guides/rule_of_78s.htm

If so I concur. We've lived through a decade plus of baked-in inflation and we still need to ride out the deflationary part of the cycle before either normalcy or hyper-inflation comes to pass.

Keynesian economics practiced in the form of large government programs and Union entitlements on the one hand and supply side tax "pre-bates" on the other are both designed to promote economic activity by linear algebra as opposed to animal spirits are only possible once a society allows itself to be governed by fiat. (Look at the EU today.Whatever one thinks about relative political positions of the citizenry in Southern Europe their vote not only doesn't matter, it isn't even inconvenient since the same policies will result. Now think about our own system and imagine there is much of a difference. Kind hard to do from where I sit)

Without the political will to work towards a international system of currency integrity (otherwise trading partners will just export their deflation as China now does) I worry that a hyper-inflationary period, neo-dark ages if you will, has to be where this is all going.

shrekgrinch says

If commodity prices are deflationary, then why are people risking their lives stealing copper from hot electricity main lines?
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2011/06/22/thousands-without-power-in-cranberry-twp/

Why else would a homeless person steal food? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO MONETARY NOTES!

When everybody has piles of money in there hands - that's called inflation.

When hardly anyone has a penny - that' called deflation unless of course the currency is being overthrown.

The dollar is still generally the world reserve currency. I already explained that the dollar isn't backed by anything but neither are the majority of other currencies that are much much more unstable than the dollar.

I find it funny that some posters are trying to fault find me on little details to try discredit me - instead of looking at the heart of the issue which is fractional reserve banking & how the banks become more wealthy by shutting out lending in order collapse asset prices to trigger defaults. The did the samething during the great depression & they contracted the availability to money. They lose nothing by defaults but gain everything.

Most likely they have the same game in mind. History repeats itself. At the same time I also don't claim that deflation will happen for sure but what I do claim is that deflation is big risk when you look at exactly what the banks do when they give out loans. Even credit cards do the exact same thing.

It's amusing though that people fear monger inflation when inflation is most likely going to help them. Why? Because the majority of Americans have debt - when the scarcity of money rises by 10 times - it will take 10 times the effort to pay off that same debt. Inflation will hurt savers though but majority of Americans hardly have any savings or no savings at all.

Deflation will bring poverty to you. That's the real enemy. It's no surprise that the majority of people always claim how inflation is going to happen. They majority of people also claimed how real estate was they only best investment under the sun back in the bubble years.

People tend to believe what they want to happen. And that's why 90% of investors lose money or break even in a 10 year period.

StoutFiles says

The idiot box and microwaves existed in the 60’s and 70’s, so you wouldn’t have to give those up. As for cancer, it’d be a wash with all the cigarette smoke that would be in every establishment you go to. But hey, the grass is always greener, right?

The original poster spoke about Cable TV we have today - I could care less about cable tv.

And yeah - microwaves existed but they were NOT common & very expensive - By the late 1960 to early 1970's, microwaves were $400-500 back then - In todays money that is approximately $2775.67

Close to $3,000 dollars. Do you know anybody that spends $3000 on coffee machine today? Maybe if they are wealthy but majority of people do not own a $3,000 dollar coffee machine.

What makes you think they would own a microwave appliance for $3000?
Elvis Presley owned one but he wealthy & it was considered a luxury at that time.

StoutFiles says

Small essays filled with conspiracy theories aren’t going to convince anyone, just let things play out.

I never brought up the women's movement - the original poster brought it up & claimed how great it was - which is false. I simply pointed out his own faults as he was trying to point out mine. No need for you to interfere.

http://www.elliottwave.com/freeupdates/archives/2011/06/06/Housing-Market-Worst-Since--The-Great-Depression-.aspx

"Conquer the Crash said to expect a 90% decline in average real estate values and to bide your time until your dream house became available at ten cents or less on the dollar. Today I received a flyer in the mail. It reads, 'Bank Foreclosed Property—Now Available at Pennies on the Dollar! All properties will be liquidated; first come, first choice.' One example is 6.2 acres of wooded mountain property with 700 feet of stream-front for $29,900, which is more than 75% off its previous asking price. A rather famous estate near where I live cost $50 million to build, and it is now listed for sale at $16.75 million. That’s 2/3 off, based on the asking price, which no one seems to be taking."
Elliott Wave Theorist, March 2011

When Conquer the Crash published in 2002, stocks were in a big downtrend. But for several years afterward, the investing public increasingly believed housing was a "sure" investment.

Most people who purchased a home in 2002 would not have imagined that the price they paid then would be unchanged ten years later. Alas, that's the way it turned out:

"Home prices in big metro areas have sunk to their lowest since 2002, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city monthly index showed...Since the bubble burst in 2006, prices have fallen more than they did during the Great Depression."
Associated Press, (5/31)

Dow Jones Marketwatch (6/1) quotes an economist who said "[home] prices have now fallen by more than the 31% decline endured during the Great Depression."

The article also mentions that it took nineteen years for home prices to recover to their pre-Great Depression peak.

Real estate prices spiraled down precipitously during the early 1930s, including single family homes, hotels and rental properties.

Late in his life, renowned stock trader Gerald M. Loeb authored the classic book The Battle for Stock Market Profits (1971). These excerpts are from that book:

I lived in New York City in 1929. Hotels of all kinds were then going up on every side. They were in deep financial trouble almost overnight. I paid $12,000 a year rental for my two-bedroom-and-living-room suite in the Savoy Plaza. A year later I paid $4,000 a year, and this rate prevailed for about ten years.

During the 30s, occupancy rates in many cases dropped to under 50 percent. Hotel equities were wiped out . . . Commercial rentals also dropped severely. I know of cases where landlords practically waived the rent entirely just to keep the space occupied. The hope was that when times improved the building owner would have a rent-paying tenant again.

List prices were meaningless. During the 1933 bank holiday I paid $8 a day for a $40-a-day suite in an Atlantic City luxury hotel.

There were equities in co-op luxury apartments that sold for six figures in 1929 going for just $1 in the 1930s. The owners could not pay their taxes, mortgage interest, and maintenance.

Prices of homes declined sharply. There was a mortgage moratorium.

The point of recalling these scattered incidents is that there is never any such thing as a one-way street when it comes to economic trends.

In more recent decades, home prices were on a "one-way street" -- namely up.

But as we know, the trend in real estate prices did an abrupt U-turn. Now it's traveling swiftly in the opposite lane.

Maybe I am a foolish optimist, but I think that house prices won't go down 95%. But it's not all beer and skittles in some places. It depends on the spot the house is in. Was there 1. huge bubble 2. mortgages to illegal alien residents 3. low wage location 4. broke town location 5. crime 6. HUD houses and apartments 7. etc.
My friend lives in a part of town that is a bit crummy. Some guys got killed about 300feet up his street in these apartments inhabited exclusively by illegal aliens.
Across the street there are a few condos for sale. They are asking huge money, some fools put in 1. stainless steel gadgets 2. granite counters 3. tile floors 4. ETC. It is all expensive lipstick on a pig.
For kicks I check out a town that borders Monterey. Saw a place for sale for $243K. Bought in June 2005 for $689K. Some bank took a bath on this little dump.
If the area is pretty nice like San Franciso, stuff is not going down so far. If it's someplace pretty crummy, like Las Vegas, then they're going down or are already down.
What many Americans didn't know was in some wealthy countries with high standards of living many people actually rent.
But, it's fun to see how things that you normally rent even are not immune to the scam of trying to convince you to buy anyway.
Time shares are the example. They try to convince you to "buy" what you visit a few days per year, when renting hotel rooms is of course more in your interest.

SF ace says

90

SF Ace - you probably failed you high-school math class, didn't you. Simple 10th grade induction proof method would have taught you that if there is 1 place where prices with fall or already fell 90%, prices will fall 90% everywhere:

There is 1 place where prices fell 90% (LV let's say).
If prices fell 90% in place n there would surely fall 90% in place (n+1block), because, if they didn't, people would just buy in place n, instead, causing sellers in place (n+1block) to lower their price until 90% fall is achieved.
Therefore, prices will fall 90%, everywhere.

MCMSinger says

Back in the old days… Minium wage workers bought their own homes within 2 years either with full cash payment or with just a very small loan with a large cash downpayment.

I remember back in the days I used to deliver pizza part time and pay student loans while renting a 2bd town house. I could go to any concert I wanted to. Life was pretty easy.

Maybe today we are just paying for the fake prosperities of the past. That last housing bubble especially, it wasn't free. Eventually karma catches up with us all. I tend to think that if government were to get out of the housing industry it would become good on it's own again.

“Most of the people that work for minimum wage are minors as a plurality. As people get older they are much less likely to earn minimum wage.”

Completely false. A lot of older people are beginning to work minimum wage jobs. The job market is changing very much…"

My claim still stands because I back it up. Unless you can disprove it then I'm correct.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010tbls.htm
The percentage of people that are on unemployment decreases with age. There is enough evidence to make the correlation. I could also add to the argument that people without a job technically make no wage and since employment itself increases with age then that only adds to the evidence.

"What you are mentioning is an advancement of technology not an advancement in OPPORTUNITY to better oneself financially & career-wise. You might argue that technology is allowing that opportunity but the technology doesn’t matter if the fundamentals of the economy is terrible."

True but economies can differ and these technologies enable people to work in other economies.

"The women’s right movement was funded by The Rockefellers to be able to tax half of the population & to have kids in school at an earlier age so they can indoctrinate them how to think. Feminism was a CIA operation to destabilize society between the genders & break up the family. Please research the REAL agenda behind movements before proclaiming how positive their effects have been. (I do think women deserve equal pay & equal opportunity but women these days are more in favor; I can give you proof for this statement - so don’t think about saying “Men tend to get paid more & promoted” - because I will debunk it!)"

Conspiracy zone eh? Rockefellers had nothing to do with it. To note yes we did land on the moon and yes Obama was born in this country. Don't tell me to research your arguments without providing actual empirical evidence. If you can't make an argument then how is that my fault?!?

"Women by the are forced to work anyway due to the costs of living; but many of them are being brainwashed into thinking they are only working because they want too & it’s the modern thing to do - when actually there is much more to the story."

Which is...? Littering and...littering and...littering and... it isn't so much brainwashing but doesn't everyone want to make money?

"And by the way - If I had a time machine - I would choose to live in the 1960’s or the 1970’s - I’d happily give up microwaves, the idiot box, internet, gps & cancer causing phones in return to a better opportunity to reach my potential in terms of education, career and finances. Not to mention I would be able to eat more natural foods - not the chemically infested foods we have today."

So we didn't have chemicals then? Lead paint, asbestos...o wait what about fluoride and your "precious bodily fluids"?

"Who wants to pay payment plans? And by the way they are NOT affordable -they take up a large chunk of your income & sometimes take years to pay off. And people are FORCED to go to college - it’s a weed out method used to control people’s role in career & their financial level."

No one is forced to do anything. Any indivdual can say no to anything. Now if the other party says or acts that's their own accord. Not affordable and yet they give student loans out all the time..and the median college debt is less than a new car and yet we don't prevent people from buying new cars..it is nearly the same amount as a wedding and yet we don't tell people to not get married (infact the opposite is true)

"Cost of living is down? lol okay. And if you don’t drive you don’t have full control of your life unless you live in a big city like Manhattan. Having a car has become more of necessity today."

Manhattan is part of NYC it is not a city by itself. If you live in a city you don't need a car..do you live in the suburbs? Why would someone have a car in a city when there's buses and trains?

"Wrong! They only reason college is required by most jobs is because it’s a weed out method to have certain people in poverty & others in prosperity - regardless of whether the one without the useless piece of paper is actually 10 times skillful, talented & valuable than a moron who think just because he sat down on desk & repeated what he was told he is entitled to more. Anybody can copy & repeat but it takes a genius to create & innovate. Public schooling & college is not about teaching people to create things - it’s about teaching people to be obedient & do whatever they are told to do without questioning the validness behind it."

Um no sorry. Before the establishment of the state most intelligentsia was with religious institutions and frankly religion does not really do research or experimenting. Don't get me wrong if you want to be a better Christian, Jew, Muslim etc it is fine but from an employer standpoint a religious school (at least with a major of religion) is not that appealing. Copy and repeat? That's called learning. If a child learns to tie their shoes would you ask them to do it a different way because it wasn't original or creative? I'm sorry but you have to show me what you mean by "creative"

“Dumbed down as to what?” - Dumbed down as to useless subjects with no application in the real world. Obsolete courses & irrelevant courses required for every major. High school taught oneself to be independent after graduation back in the past. Nowadays High schools is about brainwashing you to pony up thousands of dollars to learn useless shit along with making you think that what the bankers do is good for America."

Your argument does not make sense since many classes and subjects didn't exist decades ago. Also why are unemployment levels lower with higher education? If you claim that high school isn't needed then how come no employers will higher drop outs? You act as if an employer is going to give someone a chance with a blank slate and frankly that never happens.

"Experience doesn’t look nice, you clueless sheep - Experience is what really counts! Because experience is doing & By doing you learn a million times more than mentally masturbating on to bullshit some idiot in front a classroom mumbles out of his mouth from a textbook."

So can someone pass a test that has experience? yes or no? If no why not? Experience is fine but how do you quantify it? If a you examine a police officer in NYC and one in Laconia NH..the one in NYC has five years experience and Laconia 15. Who has seen more "action". The one in NYC..sure there's the biker convention in NH but outside of that it is quiet.

Let's say I give you a million dollars to hire a bunch of people..would you teach them skills that have a value somewhere else? No of course not because then they'd be more likely to leave. That's why you might take something and make it only apply to your organization. That's how many organizations work.

I personally know a women who has been doing bookkeeping for 30 years. She was let go and cannot find a job because *surprise* most of the jobs in her field now require a degree. There is competition within employers to get more trained staff and the only universal is a degree, a certification, a competency test etc. You have to have a metric or some form of standard.

"What the masses of idiots think of as “education” is really only dependence on having others give them orders and not being able to learn themselves. If you want a true education - go to your local library and/or a good bookstore with a wide selection of excellent books."

I'm all for reading but in order to show competency there would have to be a metric.

"Go research the truth about behind public education. It was funded by the Rockefellers with a evil agenda."

Not really because it was established in the colonial days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States
Now maybe you are totally high as a kite and think the rockefellers are these immortal beings from another planet but on earth in reality public education was established long before they were around.

Logically what you are saying is incomplete. OK so with a market perspective here how can an employer be against education? If you don't like public education then I'm assuming you want private. If you don't want any what employer in their right mind is going to allow an employee to "experiment" on their own time and dime?

"Majority of accountants are overpaid morons who think they are somebody so brilliant because they sit around all day & know how to do 2 + 2…. And their jobs are really only secured by the unconstitutional IRS system set up by international bankers to pay for the interest on debt of the Federal Reserve notes they lend to the US government."

huh? I'm no fan of accounting but investors need to know where funds are going. Have you ever read a 10K report? So according to you accounting doesn't exist in other countries then?

"And you are right, students 40 years ago would not pass the “tests” today because the “tests” are assessing how much useless knowledge you have in the first place. I sure would love to fail those tests."

So what test would you pass..other than a drug one?

"How is a manager a leader when all they did was learn how to repeat after authority? A manager needs to have a brain of their own."

Because if you are a manager you might not be an owner. Any business performs a business plan and the follow that to create profitability. I think you are confusing inventor with manager.

"Stop talking about things which you know nothing about but only think you do. That’s one of the main problems with society today - people think they are competent & know how things work - when they really do not."

To somewhat quote Blade Runner. "I want you to provide me with a negative before I provide you with a positive" I think you are trying to provoke but you aren't really providing a means of what you believe "how things should be".

If you would like to debate me outside the context of this forum that is fine.

mdovell says

“Stop talking about things which you know nothing about but only think you do. That’s one of the main problems with society today - people think they are competent & know how things work - when they really do not.”

How about you start to cite numbers instead of having verbal diarrhea! Is Alex Jones your prophet or David Ick?

Getting too close to personal insults on both sides. Don't make me delete comments. Just be polite-ish.

@modvell

The wisdom behind your arguments are way below average intellectual capacity. They don't even deserved to be explained for their wrongness due to the disdain they deserve and especially the fact that any person that uses their brain could see through it.

"modvell"

??

See though what? One might argue I am being devils advocate but if you think I am rough well employers are even harder. Since you are not citing any specifics I cannot take your comments seriously.

We need a new category for nominating entire threads.

Just in case, I think I will set aside 50K, you know, so that in the event that MCMsingers "reasoning" is correct, I can buy a million dollar (today's prices) house with cash. Or maybe if they still do financing then I will buy 5 million dollar houses and rent 4 of them out.

marcus says

We need a new category for nominating entire threads.

Nominated for what?

We don't do a lot of proof by induction in high school Math. Mostly just deductive reasoning proofs in Geometry. Sometimes we do talk about how much easier it is to disprove something than to prove it. Detroit comes to mind as a counter example in this case. Unless DR meant that Detroit proves that what happened in Detroit must happen everywhere.

Cool,... he even broke it down.

dunnross says

There is 1 place where prices fell 90% (LV let’s say).
If prices fell 90% in place n there would surely fall 90% in place (n+1block), because, if they didn’t, people would just buy in place n, instead, causing sellers in place (n+1block) to lower their price until 90% fall is achieved.
Therefore, prices will fall 90%, everywhere.

That's way too clever to not be intended as humor.

Nominated for what?

I don't know, maybe "most ridiculous things said in a single thread."

MCMSinger says

Stop talking about things which you know nothing about but only think you do. That’s one of the main problems with society today - people think they are competent & know how things work - when they really do not.

Ahh good stuff. No misplaced arrogance there.

By the way, I think the quote feature on this forum is awesome and easy to use. Don't be scared of it. You can learn to use it just like everone else. After a little trial and error one finds how easy it is to use. Don't let the HTML tags scare you. If they do scare you, maybe spend 15 or 20 minutes learning some basic html. No biggie. But you don't need to know any html.

See how nifty it is ? See how it improves readability of a comment that includes a quote of someone else?

Step one) highlight the text you wish to quote

Step two) hit the quote button/link

Your quote appears in the comment box below. Note the edit button on your comment, if your comment didn't work as planned, you can delete the comment by:

step one) hit edit button

step two) edit or if you wish, delete (if you are experimenting with the functionality).

marcus says

We don’t do a lot of proof by induction in high school Math. Mostly just deductive reasoning proofs in Geometry. Sometimes we do talk about how much easier it is to disprove something than to prove it. Detroit comes to mind as a counter example in this case. Unless DR meant that Detroit proves that what happened in Detroit must happen everywhere.

Cool,… he even broke it down.

dunnross says

There is 1 place where prices fell 90% (LV let’s say).
If prices fell 90% in place n there would surely fall 90% in place (n+1block), because, if they didn’t, people would just buy in place n, instead, causing sellers in place (n+1block) to lower their price until 90% fall is achieved.
Therefore, prices will fall 90%, everywhere.

That’s way too clever to not be intended as humor.

So we are all acknowledging that as sarcasm then? Because I was beginning to think everyone considered that logic to be foolproof and it was scaring me.

StoutFiles says

Because I was beginning to think everyone considered that logic to be foolproof and it was scaring me.

It has a small hint of truth to it, in that there can be a contagion to highly discounted housing prices, but for a single community economic base area only, and only if the number and magnitude of the discounts get up to a critical mass. This helps explain why banks and the government wouldn't want prices to drop too quickly. Not just because of the negative feedback loop that would result (more and more walk aways) but also because too many deeply discounted homes at once, might overwhelm the buying and investing side.

It's true that markets do tend to over do it in both directions. But real estate is unique. Real Estate is highly highly leveraged and it is illiquid. And real estate has utility as housing giving it intrinsic value tied to the rent that can be obtained for it.

There is A LOT OF CASH OUT THERE, and it's not all in the hands of banks that are sitting on it. Much of it is in the hands of rich individuals and funds, looking for somewhere safe to invest it. They can put a certain amount in bonds so that they will clean up BIG TIME under MCMsingers deflationary scenario. But then they need to offset those investments partly with equities and also with real assets such as gold or real estate.

Those investors are the support under the real estate market.

But the inflation/ deflation question is interesting. We have deflation in housing, and maybe in certain imported items, and close to deflation in salaries. But inflation in most everything else.

(using a simple price definition for inflation and deflation)

marcus says

We need a new category for nominating entire threads.
Just in case, I think I will set aside 50K, you know, so that in the event that MCMsingers “reasoning” is correct, I can buy a million dollar (today’s prices) house with cash. Or maybe if they still do financing then I will buy 5 million dollar houses and rent 4 of them out.

Anything I said shouldn't be taken as professional financial advice.

But I will say to be careful at which bank you keep your money. Ideally a Swiss Bank which is solid - would be good. Maybe even convert some of the money into Swiss Francs. Switzerland is never in much financial trouble whenever their is a global crisis.

If you also feel a little uneasy with fiat currency - consider some investing in silver - it is being undervalued for a long time. Avoid gold, it's being over valued. Don't invest in metals by paper. Have the metal on reserve at your OWN safe. Also consider the possibility that the Federal Reserve may enact siezures of these metals as they did in 1933 with gold along with 10 year prison penalties for failing to hand it over. They contracted the money supply & created deflation which was a big fuel of the depression, though not they only fuel as a
the stock market manipulation was also a big part.

Maybe the international bankers could care less about profiting from this type of crash & deflation in order trigger defaults so they can take over everybody's property. Maybe they are more concerned with crashing the dollar to get more closer to the possibility of a one world government. I don't know but I will say that they are very greedy for power and they achieve power over stock market manipulation along with manipulating the currency's value which causes defaults from the easy loans they offer during the bogus phase of prosperity. History tends to repeat itself although I do acknowledge the possibility that they might want to profit by crashing the dollar & over throwing the US government.

But they have kept the dollar as the world currency for quite sometime & display a interest in keeping it that way.

Consider protecting yourself in both ways if you feel both sides of predictions have their merits. You want to always put yourself in a position where you will win most likely regardless of what happens.

marcus says

Real Estate is highly highly leveraged and it is illiquid. And real estate has utility as housing giving it intrinsic value tied to the rent that can be obtained for it.

real estate by definition is also immobile.

Location location location.

90% depreciation in Las Vegas doesn't mean shit to LA since there is 3 hours of nothing between Victorville and Blue Diamond Rd. Until gas is free and/or the speed limit is 300mph Las Vegas might as well be on the moon.

We have deflation in housing, and maybe in certain imported items, and close to deflation in salaries. But inflation in most everything else.

I'd like to think that my thesis that housing will go down as imported stuff goes up is solid. We'll see. We're kinda in terra incognito wrt the economics of our situation. Japan has had a massive budget deficit but a trade surplus. We've got twin deficits, and I'm not smart enough to see 5+ years down the road. Don't think anyone is, actually.

@marcus

I agree. What you say has a lot of truth. I'm not saying real estate is worthless - I'm just saying it has been over valued. The upside of real estate is that if's tangible & can generate revenue. The downside is maintenance & being illiquid. It has it's merits but also it's flaws.

MCMSinger says

Anything I said shouldn’t be taken as professional financial advice.

Not to worry, I was kidding. Some of what you say is pretty reasonable. But you have a strong tendency towards extremes, and toward conspiracy paranoia.

What if that stage of fake prosperity (circa ~1987 - ~2007) happened quite naturally? Because of greed, not just greed but greed for easy money, the entitlement of the elite, deregulation, growth of the finance industry in place of manufacturing, imbalances in international finance, and many small but significant forces of corruption in our government ?

Why does it need to be some plan for world government, or to steal assets from the middle class (not that trends towards those things happening don't exist.) Sometimes when the rich are busy getting richer, the middle class getting fucked over is just an unintended consequence, rather than something they plotted all along via trilateral commission or free masons, or the the federal reserve via Bohemian grove or whatever your favorite conspiracy theory is.

This kind of stuff is just insane:

MCMSinger says

The women’s right movement was funded by The Rockefellers to be able to tax half of the population & to have kids in school at an earlier age so they can indoctrinate them how to think. Feminism was a CIA operation to destabilize society between the genders & break up the family. Please research the REAL agenda behind movements before proclaiming how positive their effects have been.

IT destroys any credibility you might have for your more reasonable assertions. Likewise your criticism of fiat currency and banking way too extreme for me. But you will find that many around here see the problems, although frame them quite differently, and acknowledge that some of us or maybe all of us are going to pay the piper somehow.

I think the government is trying to figure out how to do it very slowly, and to prevent it from hitting the rich.

I think the original post brings up some decent points, but it gets overshadowed by the excessive drop prediction. A 300k house dropping 95% would turn into a 15k house. A 19 y/o kid working at Taco Bell could afford to buy that. That's not an insult to someone working at Taco Bell, but it means an incredible amount of people would be able to afford to buy...aka increased demand. What happens when you increase demand? Prices go up. Prices would never get that low to begin with, because once they hit a level that becomes attractive, people will start buying and the prices stop falling and turn in the other direction.

The only way prices can drop 95% is if we have a massive population outflux and wage decline of around 70-80% (wages don't need to drop AS much since the housing market is currently overvalued). That's what deflation is, but I see in your later posts you argue that wages won't fall. That just doesn't make sense. If I made the same salary I do now, and there were 15k houses on the market...i'd own 5 of them, with no mortgage.

To use your own point against you - math doesn't lie, only opinions do. Historically house prices follow incomes, and there is a simple economic principle behind that. Everyone needs a place to live, so it's always going to be a decent chunk of your overall expenses. Like I said, if there was a 15k house on the market and I still had the same income, I could pay for the house in cash, still have plenty of savings, and then probably retire in 5 years because my expenses would be so insanely low. I don't make enough money to be able to retire at 35. I would then be contributing nothing to society. That scenario is just as much a fantasy as the people who were hoping to live off their house appreciating indefinitely. There is just no logic behind it.

RealisticOptimist says

The only way prices can drop 95% is if we have a massive population outflux and wage decline of around 70-80%

or gasoline that costs $100/gallon, middle-class tax rate at 50%, subsistence food at $1000/month.

Not much left over for the rent/mortgage in that world, and that's not a future that is that improbable.

Historically house prices follow incomes, and there is a simple economic principle behind that. Everyone needs a place to live, so it’s always going to be a decent chunk of your overall expenses.

This is true as far as it goes, but existing housing has a very low cost of production. The money we pay on rent and mortgages is simply set via an informal bid system, with the rent set at what somebody else is able and willing to pay + some delta.

There is just no logic behind it.

The logic, as I see it, is the middle class being taken out into the fields and shot.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/03/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110703

Wage collapse, sky-high energy prices, no deus-ex-machina technology to save us, dollar collapsing, we could see immense reversals.

Granted, the PTB does not want to see this happen, but the current system is running pretty deranged at the moment. I have no idea what's going to happen this decade.

Troy says

The only way prices can drop 95% is if we have a massive population outflux and wage decline of around 70-80%

or gasoline that costs $100/gallon, middle-class tax rate at 50%, subsistence food at $1000/month.

Valid points there. Yeah, if the cost of everything else continues to go up, then yes, there is only so much money to go around. I hope Im not around when that happens, because our country will be in very bad shape if it does.

Troy says

Granted, the PTB does not want to see this happen, but the current system is running pretty deranged at the moment. I have no idea what’s going to happen this decade.

Also true - our system is a bit messed up right now. I don't think it will get THAT bad, but like you said, who knows what's going to happen.

Im pretty cynical, but I'm a little more optimistic about the future. There are definitely some massive changes up ahead, but I think we'll slowly adapt to them and come out ok. This decade will definitely be interesting.

Wow. This much discussion about a Robert Pretcher prediction?

Last time I checked, Pretcher was still a permabear, and had a fairly poor record as a forecaster.

What about Ronald McDonald?

What does he forecast?

@Troy

>I’d like to think that my thesis that housing will go down as imported stuff goes up is solid. We’ll see. We’re kinda in terra incognito wrt the economics of our situation. Japan has had a massive budget deficit but a trade surplus. We’ve got twin deficits, and I’m not smart enough to see 5+ years down the road. Don’t think anyone is, actually.

I agree here (usully do with most stuff you write anyay). A bit busy now so I can't check so often.

@nomograph.
I have used Clambo because I dug a lot of clams and I liked them.
I have never even heard "Clambo" spoken anywhere in my life, I have no idea what some urban dictionary has to say about the name.
Maybe I'll be Clamboslice instead. These are meaningless pseudonmyms, anyone who is trying to make a statement with his pseudonym is over-doing it in my view.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-no-propertytaxes-20110701,0,5803073,print.story?source=patrick.net

"When Michelais Josemond bought his two-bedroom condo in Tamarac four years ago, he paid $185,000 and had a property tax bill of about $2,500.

Today, his apartment is worth $18,000 and his tax bill is zero.

He is among the more than 18,800 homeowners in Broward County and 16,700 in Palm Beach County--living in houses, condos or coops--who are not required to pay property taxes because the value of their units is less than their $25,000 homestead exemption."

There you go. Unbelievable fall in value. We shall see what the nationwide vs local market outcomes will be over the coming decade.

Dire scenarios where homes drop 90-95% and food/gasoline costs rise 1000% would affect everyone on this board fairly equally.. those that are renting now and sitting on a nest egg would be forced to spend their life savings on food and gasoline...

Those with mortgages would like dominos stop paying fairly rapidly... In fact, it would make sense to rush out and get a huge home equity loan right now if the above scenario were destined to occur even if you owned your home outright. Because if all homes lost 90-95% of their value our entire banking system would collapse and even if you had $500K in the bank in cash your ATM card wouldn't let you withdraw it.

So stop pretending any of the above scenarios would be good for anyone on this earth... only the top 1% would find a way to survive and profit... The frugal savers would unfairly suffer along with the home debtors...

Los Angeles Renter says

Dire scenarios where homes drop 90-95% and food/gasoline costs rise 1000% would affect everyone on this board fairly equally.. those that are renting now and sitting on a nest egg would be forced to spend their life savings on food and gasoline...
Those with mortgages would like dominos stop paying fairly rapidly... In fact, it would make sense to rush out and get a huge home equity loan right now if the above scenario were destined to occur even if you owned your home outright. Because if all homes lost 90-95% of their value our entire banking system would collapse and even if you had $500K in the bank in cash your ATM card wouldn't let you withdraw it.
So stop pretending any of the above scenarios would be good for anyone on this earth... only the top 1% would find a way to survive and profit... The frugal savers would unfairly suffer along with the home debtors...

I agree with you mate. I don't think I ever said that deflation would be better - I just said that their is more risk of deflation & it seems to be
in the best interest of the few .01% to collapse the system in this manner.

I believe I clearly said that deflation will hurt the majority of people not inflation. Deflation as I said before will be more destructive than inflation because with inflation you can start all over again - this time more wisely but with deflation you have to go through a complete collapse of the entire financial system until you can move on to growth.

And I think you are quite smart with pointing out how banks will collapse all over - it's exactly what happened in the great depression albeit not all banks collapsed - The ones that remained were under the control of the royal elites & those banks took over the assets of the collapsed banks for pennies.

That's what they do; They first bankrupt a business or stock that they want to buy before actually buying it. That's how they buy artifiicially low which results in a profit once the manipulation wears off.

And yes, savers are going to lose all their money. FDIC is not going to do anything.

And also yes, Be very carefull what bank your money is in.

"Banks lending money that they don't even have in their reserves is not rational."
True but fractional reserve banking is what we generally have.

As much as I might think the housing market will go down saying 90-95% off of peak is just too much. Even if we examine the worst hit markets (Phoenix and Vegas..throw in Detroit for the heck of it) nothing is even close to that.

Unless there is something major like a nuclear accident or a volcano I doubt such amounts are possible. I'm not even sure if any areas in the country has that amount even on a historical basis..maybe Love Canal but I don't know if stats of that area were even kept after the 80's...

The only incident I can recall where prices had a sharp drop on a somewhat expensive item is this
I have an old Egyptian colleague that was there when Israel gave back the Sinai. When the settlers left..they outright left. Very little attempted to be salvaged to take with them and much was sold off for pennies on the dollar (this was not the case with Gaza decades later.infact it was the opposite) He told me you could buy a Benz for $50..that's how eager they were to get rid of things. Even factoring in inflation that's still dirt cheap.

Although I don't think it will help it drop to 90% from peak it will be interesting to see what happens if/when a bank (not saying all) starts unloading the shadow inventory.

I love it

Patrick, you know perl right ? I used to know a little. Pretty powerful for dealing with so called regular expressions. But then this task sounds like a pain, probably.

Sad that there are such aholes around here. Kind of confirms what I say about how republicans are often poor sports. THey don't play fair, for obvious reasons.

That's okay, I just added 2 new members to my ignore list. If you can delete them totally (anyone from their IP address ?), I would.

marcus says

Sad that there are such aholes around here

Personal attack.

marcus says

Kind of confirms what I say about how republicans are often poor sports. THey don't play fair, for obvious reasons.

I'm a republican. This country was built upon a republic which is a open and free society. A republic means everybody gets to rule fairly. A democracy means 49% control 51%. Worst form of government.

But now both political parties are about the same thing for the most part but understand a democracy is against the very foundation of what this country was built on.

marcus says

If you can delete them totally (anyone from their IP address ?), I would.

Giving orders, eh?

What's the url for this video?

marcus says

Fine, delete my comment, or me, or better still this entire thread, but I'm not the one showing disrespect for this forum.

I bet you want this entire thread deleted because you would hate to see the housing market crash more.

Nothing wrong with that but it's not nice to demand censorship and act like a tyrant as if you own this forum.

And dude relax. It's pointless to get emotional over disagreements on the internet.

marcus says

your behavior is the behavior of a scumbag

Personal Attack.

It is fairly lame to take on somebody else name and picture...