patrick.net

In the very first sentence he says he has been expecting hyper inflation for 8 years. Can't take anyone seriouslywho has been dead wrong for 8 years. (especially an economist)
Secondly, hyper inflation would be a reason to buy real estate, as that would be the best hedge against hyper inflation.
This is fodder for the perma bears, and nothing more.

If he shouldn't be taken seriously, then no hyperinflation and home prices collapses.

Why must you always have extremes?
Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years. That would be the best case scenario for the economy, jobs, deficits, growth etc etc. For the sake of this wonderful country lets hope that is exactly what happens.

Raw says

Why must you always have extremes?

Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years. That would be the best case scenario for the economy, jobs, deficits, growth etc etc. For the sake of this wonderful country lets hope that is exactly what happens.

That is wishful thinking in my opinion. I don't want to "pretend" that everything will be okay. I know for a fact that the financial system is on the precipice. I am trying to wake up the sheep

HousingBoom says

Raw says

Why must you always have extremes?

Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years. That would be the best case scenario for the economy, jobs, deficits, growth etc etc. For the sake of this wonderful country lets hope that is exactly what happens.

That is wishful thinking in my opinion. I don't want to "pretend" that everything will be okay. I know for a fact that the financial system is on the precipice. I am trying to wake up the sheep

How would you fix the economy? What would you do that is different from what the government is already doing?
Keep in mind economic recovery is well under way. Should we even rock the boat?

Raw says

Secondly, hyper inflation would be a reason to buy real estate, as that would be the best hedge against hyper inflation.

Actually, this is not necessarily true. The interest rates will have to go higher if there is a hyperinflation. The bond prices will collapse as well.

Raw says

How would you fix the economy? What would you do that is different from what the government is already doing?

Keep in mind economic recovery is well under way. Should we even rock the boat?

The last thing I would do is print trillions out of thin air and destroy the value of the US dollar. They already dug themselves in a big hole. The only thing we can do is stop printing and let the free market determine interest rates and go from there. The Fed's intervention is what causes these bubbles.

The economy is being fully supported by the printing press. It is equivalent to saying that an unemployed person is doing well and very wealthy because he is borrowing $50,000 a week to pay for his extravagant life style. If you think this person is doing well then I think that's a problem.

gsr says

Actually, this is not necessarily true. The interest rates will have to go higher if there is a hyperinflation. The bond prices will collapse as well.

I agree. Home prices will fall at first but when wages increase dramatically, I think home prices will eventually rise (maybe).

HousingBoom says

Raw says

Why must you always have extremes?

Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years. That would be the best case scenario for the economy, jobs, deficits, growth etc etc. For the sake of this wonderful country lets hope that is exactly what happens.

That is wishful thinking in my opinion. I don't want to "pretend" that everything will be okay. I know for a fact that the financial system is on the precipice. I am trying to wake up the sheep

No offense, but have you ever considered that perhaps you are just too bearish, in terms of outlook? How long will you continue to think we are on the "precipice" before you rethink your position and conclude "gee, perhaps we are not as near to the precipice as I thought"? 1 more year? 3 more years? Another decade?

I ask because in the 3 or so years you have been here, you have been writing posts & adding borderline hysterical, apoplectic headlines about this or that is going to cause a "CRASH!!!!!!!". Yet, as we have seen, the last 3 years has been nothing but one huge nothingburger of sideways prices. You would think this would cause you to temper your outlook a little, but that doesnt seem to be the case.

In a way, you remind me alot of a guy I know. Ever since the late 80s, he has been renting because he "knows" that a huge price crash is "just around the corner". You would think that being wrong for the last 25 years would make him reconsider. Yet, he continues to think the crash is "imminent" and he continues to rent - now for over 2 decades, with no end in sight.

So again, is there ever a drop dead date wherein you will reconsider your thesis?

robertoaribas says

arguments based on complete bs follow.

Could you please take a look at the prices of commodities and raw materials, and tell me they did not increase? The obvious ones are gold, copper, gasoline, oil. The non-obvious ones are banana, rice, wheat etc. Some of them did have a peak around 2007/2008.

The price of a honda has not increased much due to fall of Yen. The prices of German cars have certainly gone up in value due to rise of Euro.

One interesting outcome of these QEs, stimulus etc. is that inflation gets exported to other developing countries, while it just inflates asset and stock prices in developed countries. In other words, the so called CPI has been much higher in Brazil, China, India etc. lately.

Japan has been using pretty much the same tactic. This has partially contributed to rising tension between China and Japan.
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog3.php/2013/01/19/the-japanese-yen-trade-is-exporting-inflation-to-china

Raw says

Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years.

If you mean by stabilize for a few years, that housing will not keep up with inflation for the next decade, then you could be right on the mark. A house is not a good hedge against hyper-inflation. It tracks to salary inflation. If we get price inflation with no salary inflation, then it will really hurt the aging homes in this country.

i'm concerned for this guy. too paranoid for his age.

robertoaribas says

I just bought some bananas for 49 cents a pound. I

Do you always draw your conclusion based on anecdotal evidence? That's unfortunate. I see that you ignored other commodities. Here is a chart for banana.

www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/banana.html

In any case, the inflation does benefit some people, at least in the short term.

CDon says

So again, is there ever a drop dead date wherein you will reconsider your thesis?

CDON - you make a good point. If the Fed stops printing trillions and raises rates and the economy does NOT collapse then I would admit I was wrong. They are only kicking the can down the road by flooding the system with cheap money. Who knows how long they can do this for but I am betting that it will only lead to a bond market collapse, much higher rates and a currency crisis if they stay on this course.

gsr says

Do you always draw your conclusion based on anecdotal evidence? That's
unfortunate. I see that you ignored other commodities. Here is a chart for
banana.

I can make a cup of starbucks coffee at home for about 5c. Starbucks can make the same cup for less than 1c. In the US we don't get nailed with these price changes on commodities because we are already paying in most cases 10 to 100 times the real cost.

Now when you are talking about some poor undeveloped country, yeah they get fucked and starve when there is food commodity inflation.

yup1 says

Now when you are talking about some poor undeveloped country, yeah they get fucked and starve when there is food commodity inflation

Right.

Having said that, excluding the cost of food, our cost of other items involving human labor is relatively very high. A lot of low income people have been living on debt. The rate of savings is very low. So a marginal increase in food prices could cause a bigger problem.

HousingBoom says

CDon says

So again, is there ever a drop dead date wherein you will reconsider your thesis?

CDON - you make a good point. If the Fed stops printing trillions and raises rates and the economy does NOT collapse then I would admit I was wrong. They are only kicking the can down the road by flooding the system with cheap money. Who knows how long they can do this for but I am betting that it will only lead to a bond market collapse, much higher rates and a currency crisis if they stay on this course.

I agree with you in result, but not in timeframe. With an unlimited timeframe, I have little doubt that it will all come crashing down, but why do you think it will happen in the next 10 years, much less within your lifetime?

Just because you are now aware of the can kicking, dont assume it is somehow unique or novel. Far as I can tell, the US has been kicking the can down the road, sucessfully for over 200 years now - a pittance compared to other empires who did it for hundreds or thousands of years. Multiple generations have thought these actions of the US were "unsustainable", yet they are all dead now, and the can kicking continues unabated.

As far as the bond markets go, I feel very certain they will cannibalize each and every other marketplace in the world before they start asking for substantially higher risk premiums from the US. As of this moment, you cant really say they have finished cannibalizing greece, the very weakest of say 40 targets, before we are up at bat. If 5 years in, they are still working over the weakest one, are they really going to eviscerate all of them and then proceed to the USA in your lifetime?

And therein lies the problem for the doomer perspective. Just because something is "inevitible" (which is correct), dont assume it is "imminent". I learned this lesson back in 1999 when I bought a house and decided to run the gauntlet, despite some telling me we were truly on the "verge" of massive upheaval. If I listened to them, I likely would now be in year 14 of renting, with no end in sight. As it is, because I ignored them, I am now 12-13 years away from being payment free.

CDon - simple math proves it is imminent.
http://patrick.net/?p=1221282

HousingBoom says

CDon - simple math proves it is imminent.
http://patrick.net/?p=1221282

That whole presentation was simply... math with huge scary numbers = the day of reconing is coming. Yet, this has been going on for hundres of years.

150 years ago, the same argument was advanced with the then staggering sum of 3 billion. Imagine some guy, with parchment and quill, pointing hysterically at a number most people at the time had never even heard of and screaming "three billion people...three BILLION!!!". I tell you now the day of reconing is coming"!!!

The guy in your video is right, as was the hysterian of 150 years ago - the day of reconing IS coming. But is it imminent?

Far as I can tell, the answer is no. Far as I can tell, we are about 1/3 of the way through the tricks up its sleeve before the govt cannot kick the can anymore.

Want to know when things are truly "imminent"? The day the govt does what every govt in history has done and sell of periphery to preserve the core - and even then, it might not play out as you might think. The UK reached its nadir as an empire about 200 years ago, and has been cutting lose periphery territories (india, australia, hong kong, etc) to preserve the core since. Yet, that continued deterioration of the emprie for 2 centuries has done little do quell the breathtaking homeprices in core areas like london we see today.

The same will be the case here when we decide the gig is up and sell territories like Alaska where (depending upon the multiple we get for the purchase price) we have maybe 50 more years of can kicking before it all goes kaboom. Think that cannot happen? Tell that to the russian-alaskans who woke up one morning in 1867 and found out they were no longer part of their mother country.

So again, it not a question of if but (as always) a question of when. If you are parked on the sidelines now, waiting out the imminent collapse, how long will you continue to maintain that position before you decide, gee, its not as imminent as I thought?

Cdon, personally i do not believe there is any end of the world in sight. Having said that, we did have two world wars. Currently, the currency war has started gaining momentum. No one talked about it in 1998. But people are talking about it now. We have historically low interest rates.

The administration has been trying devalue the dollar, and has been failing due to competitive devaluation. But it will succeed at some point, perhaps sooner than we imagine. The question is, whether it will be a smooth one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeIFcuVTS3U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

In the event you missed the Department of Homeland Defense request to buy 7000 assault rifles and hollow point bullets. Maybe they are preparing for cannibal anarchy here at home?

underwaterman says

Was the US "non-sense" all the time we were on the gold standard and avoided
most of the boom bust cycles of fiat money?
Learn from history or repeat it.
What is nonsense is people ignorant of history.

You do need to learn from history. The US suffered from many more boom bust cycles under the gold standard than it has since it went to fiat money.

underwaterman says

No, the US was on a gold standard in 1971 until Nixon tooks us off because
France called his bluff. Was the US "non-sense" all the time we were on the gold
standard and avoided most of the boom bust cycles of fiat money?
Learn from
history or repeat it. What is nonsense is people ignorant of history.

I agree with tatupu WTF are you talking about? You are the one ignoring history........

robertoaribas says

AVERTED an imminent financial crisis

Brought on by deficit spending to fund the Vietnam War.
Do you really think that the Fed operates for the benefit of anyone but the predatory, metastasizing, financial sector?
Or that they won't set policy to benefit the predatory banks at the expense of the rest of the economy?

underwaterman says

Here is a current article in Forbes that explains it. Each financial crises gets
bigger and worse with monetary manipulation after going off the gold standard in
1971 by nixon

Please show me where the article presents data to that effect. Because I must have missed that portion.

The article basically presents nothing other than the author's opinion-Fed bad, gold good.

I can see why you like it.

underwaterman says

Below is another one. I see your up to your usual ignorant contrarian sniping
attacks tutu70. You guys really are idiots when you talk or criticize gold. You
don't know much about real estate and you no nothing about gold and currency
wars.

I'm doing nothing of the sort. You made an obviously false statement and I called you out on it. The author of the 2nd piece you posted basically refutes your statement. He admits that there were booms and busts under the gold standard but tries to argue that they happened for reasons unrelated to monetary supply. Maybe, maybe not. The point is that booms and busts were MORE frequent under a gold standard than they have been under a fiat monetay system. Period.

underwaterman says

You guys really are idiots when you talk or criticize gold. You don't know much
about real estate and you no nothing about gold and currency wars.

Says the man that attacks the argument, not the person....

HousingBoom says

Raw says

Why must you always have extremes?

Prices coould just keep going up and then stabilize for a few years. That would be the best case scenario for the economy, jobs, deficits, growth etc etc. For the sake of this wonderful country lets hope that is exactly what happens.

That is wishful thinking in my opinion. I don't want to "pretend" that everything will be okay. I know for a fact that the financial system is on the precipice. I am trying to wake up the sheep

A total collapse like this results in most people dead. There's no "waking up".

The good news is that its complete and utter bullshit. You can find people talking like this throughout history.

Nobody ever accurately predicts economic collapse. Anyone betting on it happening is a fool, or a bullshitter.

No point arguing with crazy people.

underwaterman says

This will be my last point of the topic because you have no interest in
understanding currency wars nor gold. You just post your usual contrary
positions without presenting any evidence for your ignorant opinions just as you
did here on unemployment and interest rates which was easily disproved by call
it crazy with 2 simple charts:

underwaterman says

Here is another example of stupid statements just to be contrary in which you
say consumers are not broke but a distribution problem

What's stupid about it? It's a fact.

OK--Here is a chart showing US GDP since the early 1800s. You tell me--does it look like there were more boom/bust cycles before 1970 or after 1970?

underwaterman says

First of all you have to differentiate between a true 100% gold standard,
bimetallic standard (based either on gold or silver), a quasi-gold standard,
and
then a pure fiat standard to even talk about the specific time periods
and the root causes.

No I don't. You said this:

underwaterman says

Each financial crises gets bigger and worse with monetary manipulation after
going off the gold standard in 1971 by nixon.

And the chart I posted shows definitively that you are full of crap. All the other BS you spouted is completely irrelevant. Try to stay on topic. Did booms/busts get worse under fiat money.

underwaterman says

The 99% are broke. They keep the economy on life support by injecting fake
money into it to keep the 99% going. The economy and the 99% are saturated with
debt. Take it away and the economy collapses.

You are right about that. The 99% are broke because the 1% has everything. If you REDISTRIBUTE-take money away from the 1% and give it to the 99%, people aren't broke anymore.

underwaterman says

Even producing a chart, you produce an unreadable one from a no-name
person.
What the hell is even on the Y-axis?

I told you what the chart was. If you think it's incorrect, how about you provide a GDP chart showing that booms and busts got worse after 1971. That's your position, right?

We don't have to worry about the housing market bringing down the economy. It will be the other way around. The economy is contracting even with all this money printing. Sorry but the bulls will be wrong. They have no clue how messed up this economy is right now. We are headed for a "great depression" like scenario.

HousingBoom says

Sorry but the bulls will be wrong. They have no clue how messed up this economy
is right now. We are headed for a "great depression" like scenario.

Imminently?

If it hasnt happened by 2 years from now (i.e. 2015) will you change your tune? Or will you (in early 2015) look around you, see the massive debt (which will still exist), and then extend the timeline for another 2 years (at which time you likely repeat the same conclusion yet again).

CDon says

Imminently?

If it hasnt happened by 2 years from now (i.e. 2015) will you change your tune? Or will you (in early 2015) look around you, see the massive debt (which will still exist), and then extend the timeline for another 2 years (at which time you likely repeat the same conclusion yet again).

The economy is already contracting LOL

CDon - If you think printing trillions of dollars out of thin air to boost the economy (which is not working) will fix things then I think you should hold your dollars and keep your houses and see what happens in 2-4 years.

HousingBoom says

We don't have to worry about the housing market bringing down the economy. It will be the other way around. The economy is contracting even with all this money printing. Sorry but the bulls will be wrong. They have no clue how messed up this economy is right now. We are headed for a "great depression" like scenario.

Then why are you living here?

NO country, at any point in history, has been a nice place to live during a financial collapse.

Please gtfo if you think its all going down.

HousingBoom says

CDon says

Imminently?

If it hasnt happened by 2 years from now (i.e. 2015) will you change your tune? Or will you (in early 2015) look around you, see the massive debt (which will still exist), and then extend the timeline for another 2 years (at which time you likely repeat the same conclusion yet again).

The economy is already contracting LOL

Very true. And it is something I will certainly take note of, if the trend continues and deepens.

That said - if the economy quits contracting and goes back to stagnaton type growth say Q1 2014, will you change your tune? Or will you then pick yet another of the multiple potential calamaties (which will still exist) and say this is the reason to wait further?