Quote from Howard Roark:
If i am not mistaken, some dallas area & oklahoma RE has still not recovered its pre-oil bust values. SoCal & Boston took roughly seven years to recover to 1990 values. this things seem to take at least a business cycle to recover once they burst. Those periods, however, did not have the same amount of leverage and creative financing that we are seeing now. The 80s & 90s mini-bubles were very localized. We are seeing something much larger now. RE on both coasts and chicago are at silly valuations with no equity (paid in). There will be a national stop out in housing for the investor (10% of home sales in the last 3 years) that has the IO ARM. I understand that the last national boom (1920s) was the last time the IO ARM was a very popular product. That ended well.
Wave two of easy money will come afterward, as Big Ben believes the depression could have been avoided with looser monetary policy. I don't think it will work this time, as people will be weary of the the home ATM, and regulators (OCC) will keep banks from making easy loans. Result, Argentine style stagflation. 1970s on steroids. At the same time baby boomers will be in full retirement mode. The printing press in washington will be running fast and furious. With our democratic friends taking over in 2008, count on 50% tax rate for the highest bracket (which will be 200K).
What does this mean? Look for stocks to get crushed, and stay down for a decade or more. This explains the run up in Gold. All the time, government measures of inflation will be fairly tame, mean while, a hedonically adjusted Big Mac will be $20. (Immigration policy, xenophobia, minimum wage laws, etc. will see to that.)
None of this matters for traders. Timing is everything. This may not be tomorrow's trade. But it is on the horizon. Will be your next best friend (trend=friend).