BLOG: depression

Greybeard and the Hipsters

It has been so long since the last recession 1990-91 that anyone who experienced it in business or the workforce is an old white guy – they are at best in their late 40’s and the beard sprouts grey. Let me give you some human insights, hipsters. Recession is like...

Lessons from Manhattan

photo credit: atomicshark“The devil is in the details.” German Proverb A fascinating paper on Manhattan real estate in the 1920-39 era shows why property went down, stayed down and didn’t recover in real terms until 1960. ‘Real Estate Prices During the Roaring...

Take your positions, please

A debate is a chance to crunch opposing views. Strong ideas advance and poor ones are discarded. Good. But when participants and audience have already made up their minds, fresh argument goes nowhere. The Money Institute’s big debate in Sydney on Tuesday asked – Will...

The pain in falling land prices

photo credit: Travis S. The US housing market is a living hell.  Homeowners are being boiled alive. The price of land was bid up to staggering multiples of incomes, until it no longer made sense to buy a house. And then the trend turned, hard and fast. One in five US...

Real estate bubble? Been here before

photo credit: dave_7 Polly Cleveland Economists conventionally attribute the Great Depression to blunders by the then-new Federal Reserve Bank. According to this story, promoted by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, after the stock market crash of 1929, the Fed...

Hudson: Finance Capitalism Hits a Wall

photo credit: woodleywonderworks The Oligarchs’ Escape Plan – at the Treasury’s Expense By Prof. Michael Hudson see the original article and the growing list of comments on Information Clearinghouse The financial “wealth creation” game is over. Economies emerged from...

Fundamental Answers to Fundamental Questions

The economic depression: an occasional commentary # 4 10th January 2009 Bryan Kavanagh, LVRG [If you wish to keep things simple and ignore unnecessary explanation, please proceed to the final, italicised paragraph.] The form of reductionism that has provided DNA...