Our good huckstersfriends at Royal Lepage have issued a press release titled, “Correction, not crash for Canadian real estate market in 2009; Average house prices forecast to fall 3.0 per cent”
You can find the reassuring news here.
Up next, why Joe the Used Car Salesman says it’s a great time to buy a car.
-ReductiMat
Well, I think this thread may be done? I regret being distracted by some pettiness. But anyway, now that the crash has been underway for a while, I'm losing interest in the discussion about "rightness" (like who called what when, romeo jordan style). And now I'm getting more interested in what to do next. Robert Shiller offers some interesting ideas: a) offering objective financial planners to lower income families, that can be hired at an hourly rate (rather then percentage commission) and who are not affiliated with a private company or brokerage. He suggests possible government sponsorship. b) developing "financial instruments" that let you hedge on the real estate market (in a more direct way than shorting banks and builders). In the last bubble, you couldn't directly bet against the market, you just had to ride it out. What if… Read more »
"Straw man much?"
not that it matters, but I don't see a straw man. I just thought you were being kind of petty and I thought read on had raised an interesting line of thought, to do with realtors offering financial advice (which I think is wrong).
There's no need to be so aggressive, everyone here knows you're very clever. So calm down.
And a global asset bubble like the housing bubble can only happen with the connivance of governments and central banks, which is a form of central planning in itself. What you say makes a lot of sense. But if you listen to what economists say, and surely they know a little something about this, they keep on arguing for lower interest rates and more credit. Most people in their gut know this isn't right, but how does one argue with nobel prize winners, and how does one ignore that 4.25% mortgage rate and friends/family/baristas urging/ridiculing you to buy at nonsensical prices? I think the discrepancy is in what the objective is. Most economists measure progress on the basis of a few narrow indicators like GDP and employment and their whole theories are meant to improve performance on these indicators, which… Read more »
British banks are 'technically insolvent' (and other secrecies)
Stalin had a great buisness plan. He killed all his non-performing assets. What a guy.
That's politically non-performing of course. A lot of them happened to be the best economic performers. And the rest is history.
But asset bubbles achieve some of the same results as Stalinist central planning – they divert capital away from productive investments and into spurious ones. And a global asset bubble like the housing bubble can only happen with the connivance of governments and central banks, which is a form of central planning in itself. The great irony is that only a decade after Stalinist central planning bit the dust, the US and other Western countries (including Canada – 0/40 eh?) engaged in an orgy of state-sponsored malinvestment that rivaled anything the USSR ever did.
From CondoHype: QUOTE Will taxpayers be on the hook for Bob Rennie’s Millennium Water marketing fees? For all the chatter about secret memos, sustainable design and hedge fund financing, nobody’s talking much about Rennie. His absence from the Olympic Village discussion is odd. Rennie is the the project marketer. Every sale goes through his company. Now that the city is funding the development, it’s unclear if Rennie’s estimated $50,000-per-unit payday will apply to future sales. From what I can tell, there’s no reason to believe it won’t. Despite the bailout, Millennium is expected to remain on the books as the developer in order to preserve existing pre-sales. To date, Rennie has pre-sold 265 “lower-value” units. The big mystery is the remaining 472. One can only imagine the public furor if the condo king collects fees when the units sell at… Read more »
(you could say it is similar to a communist system – in a communist system, stalin inflicted the pain, in a capitalist system, the invisible hand of the market inflicts the pain)
I'm in a rather cynical mood these days. I even think avoiding wrong headed responses is unavoidable. There will always be a Greenspan to ruin the market. By its very nature, the capitalist system will always promote someone like him to the top.
The only way for the economy to recover is if many people suffer horribly as a result of their economic nonsense. Only then does it stick and only then will they start to engage in economically meaningful activity. No reason or logic will persuade them, only pain.
Stalin had a great buisness plan. He killed all his non-performing assets. What a guy.
snapshot of the CDN economy today
This might be a bit cynical but the more I think about it, the more I think severe recessions and/or depressions are unavoidable. I'm not sure about the "severe" part, but yes recessions are unavoidable. It's part of the business cycle which is an inevitable outcome of uncertainty in a market economy. Recessions happen when capital has been misallocated and market forces finally force an adjustment. You can only avoid recessions if you have a Stalinist planned economy. But though recessions are unavoidable, wrongheaded responses to them which make things worse are another issue. The very reason we are in the mess we're in today is that Greenspan and friends tried to avert a recession following the dot-com crash and 9/11 by releasing a flood of easy money. If the US, and the world, had taken its medicine back then… Read more »
It appears that the infamous nicalisa has an accepted offer. Wonder if it will complete. Go nicalisa!
Postby nicalisa on Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:10 pm
We listed 6 days ago. We had our open last Saturday where over 75 people showed up. We had an accepted offer 2 days later. We are NOT at the bottom of the market….and we heckled on this board for our asking price….hmmmm…maybe we were just lucky…. 😀
PS. the buyers were renters and not owners so that is one less listing to look forward to in the spring. 😆
this is a good read on buisness, banking, manufacturing, export and tourism powerfhouse Singapore. These people IMHO are 3 times smarter , agressive, less spoiled and far less 'entitled', than most Canadians. If they are admiting to big problems and are actively persuing solutions, they we are in big doodoo given the retarded politicians we have to rely on.
Good read on an export , manufacturing, buisness and finance powerhouse Singapore. Keep in mind that these people are on average three times smarter and more aggressive than anything we see in this country. If they're in trouble now , we're in big trouble for sure.
M-: I heard that it costs $0 now to ship stuff from China to Europe. Just like when the airlines put on a seat sale of $99 coast to coast. They try to make a bit of money from the fees and meals.
CZ: You can visit infront of those locations given in the chart for 2008 all projects for those units were completed for example,La Hermitage,Elan,and Terminus.
If you have a source of prove, it would be nice to update to the wiki.
Wiki – just a free (free of charge and free in freedom) knowledge source with loosely managed contribution individuals, which should be used as your own judgment.
I know a guy who works in the harbour. He says a year ago there were more container ships, and most were carrying full loads. Now, there are fewer ships (not by much), but the ones that are here are carrying nowhere near their full capacity.
Things are slow at the docks. The regulars are complaining about crappy jobs. Of course its a dockworkers heritage to complain so that in itself is not unique. However the tugboat skippers are telling me they are gettin orders to push the boats off with partial loads. They are high in the water like never before. That's the good stuff too:wheat potash, peas. Some say "letter of credit" problems.
ted:There are only 3,799 units for 2009 and 1022 seymour could be exempted because it believes to be a rental building by same corporation "Onni". Please tell The Pope when his total is wrong why even bother calling it wiki?.if you can not keep track of truth just delete wiki from condofo,And you? can't you read the charts and year of completion?.Are blind or just acting to be?.
This might be a bit cynical but the more I think about it, the more I think severe recessions and/or depressions are unavoidable. Unless human beings develop the ability to resist hype and listen to reason, the only thing they will listen to is pain.
Judging from what we still see in the media these days, it is sad to note that the pain will likely have to be very excruciating in order to completely eradicate the RE disease that infected everyone.
Banks are not charities and their purpose is not to “help” people. They are businesses. They should be expected neither to give nor receive handouts.
AMEN Brother!
the article alludes to 'a stiff jump given to comsumers' I hope they called the next day.
call yourself a hedge fund and call the Bank of Japan, it's called ' the carry trade'. Too bad the scam wasn't open to everyone.
Stoxxman: Our friends the banks. So willing to “help”, as long as its fully guaranteed, secured 100%, and structured so that they can never lose Would you prefer that the banks make loans to people who can't demonstrate an ability to pay them back, so they can fail at huge expense to the taxpayers like south of the border? they ceased lending to consumers, even after massive government infusions of public cash to keep the money moving. About damned time. This whole economic crisis was caused by banks being too loose with lending. BTW borrowing for consumption makes people poorer, you know. Anyway they haven't stopped lending to me. My credit card is still working. How about yours? Have the banks stopped making mortgage loans? Car loans? Check a bank website lately? Banks are not charities and their purpose is… Read more »
Did somebody say 'Kraft Dinner'?