Comments on: What I have been reading with sick fascination for the last 18 months

By: Walter

Walter — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:27:38 +0000

I added the feeds to my Google Reader. The mainstream media doesn’t always capture the essence of economic news and can be influenced by their corporate backers/owners.

WSJ, anyone?

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:28:30 +0000

*shrug*
I’m dealing with people who are basically permabulls with complete trust in the markets and the government. They are in for a rude awakening. The data is there, and I’ve pointed it out repeatedly, but they think it’s just temporary. It’s not that I don’t have data to show them, it’s more a question of them choosing blind faith and intentional ignorance, because the alternative is to admit that they are wrong, and that’s hard for most people. Especially when their livelihood or retirement depends on the happy kool-aid.

You’re right, the housing prices are the core of the gambling, and there is nothing that can keep them high. The fundamentals aren’t there, as Patrick keeps pointing out. The house of cards has to fall, not because of “market sentiment” or temporary cycles, but because of hard cold reality.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:36:44 +0000

Tesh,

If you can get them to look at their retirement account’s performance over the last 18 months, you may be able to get some traction.

From what I understand, every action the government is taking is to compensate for reckless gambling based on an assumption of permanently increasing house prices. If this is true (and I think it is), I cannot see how anything they do will change the long term outcome, that is, home prices are coming down short of price control decrees or legislation. The intervention itself has broken my trust in the system as a whole. If a large number of other people lose this basic trust, that’s far more dangerous than house prices decreasing by 50%.

Why they assume the meddling in the inevitable will increase trust is completely beyond my comprehension.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:27:38 +0000

I keep telling people about this, but far too many of them are complacent and completely oblivious to reality. It just baffles me why people can’t open their eyes and pay attention.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:52:36 +0000

Please send it everyone. Really. 2-3 years ago all these people were laughed at. Sadly, no one is laughing any more.

By: Rowena

Rowena — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:45:50 +0000

Great wrap up!
I may send this to a few peeps around here who are also watching closely.