2009 and going forward...
We didn't realize how incredibly inefficient and enormous a bubble we've just lived through with the 70 trillion dollar real estate bubble (global)...until now.
That bubble wealth made it possible to lever every asset, borrow as much as businesses and consumers desired, and make incredibly risky business, personal and every other kind of investment and consumption decision known in history...the excess of that bubble rage is being delevered now, from Miami condos, to barely two year old luxury vehicles, boats and private, corporate jets going unsold at auction.
A fundamental sea change is now occurring, where American consumers and businesses have a new found respect for wealth, risk, leverage and the dollar.
Their knuckles will be white as they cling to their money going forward, and they'll only release their clasp when they are beyond confident that they can tolerate the worst case scenario that could materialize in the event things go horribly wrong.
The byproduct of this sea change in psychology will be a lean and mean consumption pattern for years and years to come, and major crimping of economic expansion, along with large gains in productivity.
The past 8 years were an orgy of incredible risk taking, orgiastic, conspicuous consumption, flawed business models, the easiest lending in the history of the world, insane leverage, and a total lack of respect for the piles of accumulated wealth built up very easily over past years (now wasted away for the most part).
Things are going to be radically different in the lean years to come.
Americans will be forced to live within their means, in a delevered world, with scant access to risk capital or consumer loans, and the U.S. and the rest of the world will be forced to adapt to the lean times ahead.
We didn't realize how incredibly inefficient and enormous a bubble we've just lived through with the 70 trillion dollar real estate bubble (global)...until now.
That bubble wealth made it possible to lever every asset, borrow as much as businesses and consumers desired, and make incredibly risky business, personal and every other kind of investment and consumption decision known in history...the excess of that bubble rage is being delevered now, from Miami condos, to barely two year old luxury vehicles, boats and private, corporate jets going unsold at auction.
A fundamental sea change is now occurring, where American consumers and businesses have a new found respect for wealth, risk, leverage and the dollar.
Their knuckles will be white as they cling to their money going forward, and they'll only release their clasp when they are beyond confident that they can tolerate the worst case scenario that could materialize in the event things go horribly wrong.
The byproduct of this sea change in psychology will be a lean and mean consumption pattern for years and years to come, and major crimping of economic expansion, along with large gains in productivity.
The past 8 years were an orgy of incredible risk taking, orgiastic, conspicuous consumption, flawed business models, the easiest lending in the history of the world, insane leverage, and a total lack of respect for the piles of accumulated wealth built up very easily over past years (now wasted away for the most part).
Things are going to be radically different in the lean years to come.
Americans will be forced to live within their means, in a delevered world, with scant access to risk capital or consumer loans, and the U.S. and the rest of the world will be forced to adapt to the lean times ahead.