Bulls are beside themselves about the recent performance of the Case Shiller house-price index: Prices have risen for three straight months!
This happy (if short) string of data has given rise to the widespread belief that the housing bust is over, that buyers can safely return, that folks who want to sell their houses are smart to "rent for a year until the market has come back."
Keep dreaming, says David Levy, of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center. House prices have plenty further to fall.
The FT has a new series on the future of investment. But what, I wonder, is the future of finance itself? Who is confident that the financial system now emerging from the crisis is safer, or better at servicing the public's needs, than the one that went into it? The answer has to be: few people. The question is how to remedy this dire situation.
What entered the crisis was, we now know, an ill-managed, irresponsible, highly concentrated and undercapitalised financial sector, riddled with conflicts of interest and benefiting from implicit state guarantees. What is emerging is a slightly better capitalised financial sector, but one even more concentrated and benefiting from explicit state guarantees. This is not progress: it has to mean still more and bigger crises in the years ah
Rahm Emanuel's pithy take on the credit crunch has already entered the political lexicon. But the call by the White House chief of staff to seize the opportunities is as good a yardstick as any of how authorities worldwide are responding to the huge losses inflicted on investors, savers, homeowners and taxpayers by the great financial debacle.
As the shock of the Lehman Brothers collapse a year ago retreats further from public consciousness, some experts fear that a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put to rights the system of controls and strengthen investor protection is slipping away. Has enough been done to prevent a rerun of the biggest boom and bust since the 1929 crash?
October
1
October
No Way Has Housing Bottomed, Says David Levy
Oct 01 2009 Yahoo News
Bulls are beside themselves about the recent performance of the Case Shiller house-price index: Prices have risen for three straight months!
This happy (if short) string of data has given rise to the widespread belief that the housing bust is over, that buyers can safely return, that folks who want to sell their houses are smart to "rent for a year until the market has come back."
Keep dreaming, says David Levy, of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center. House prices have plenty further to fall.
Continue Reading
1
October
Why narrow banking alone is not the finance solution
Oct 01 2009 The Financial Times
The FT has a new series on the future of investment. But what, I wonder, is the future of finance itself? Who is confident that the financial system now emerging from the crisis is safer, or better at servicing the public's needs, than the one that went into it? The answer has to be: few people. The question is how to remedy this dire situation.
What entered the crisis was, we now know, an ill-managed, irresponsible, highly concentrated and undercapitalised financial sector, riddled with conflicts of interest and benefiting from implicit state guarantees. What is emerging is a slightly better capitalised financial sector, but one even more concentrated and benefiting from explicit state guarantees. This is not progress: it has to mean still more and bigger crises in the years ah
Continue Reading
1
October
How to tame the animal spirits
Oct 01 2009 The Financial Times
Rahm Emanuel's pithy take on the credit crunch has already entered the political lexicon. But the call by the White House chief of staff to seize the opportunities is as good a yardstick as any of how authorities worldwide are responding to the huge losses inflicted on investors, savers, homeowners and taxpayers by the great financial debacle.
As the shock of the Lehman Brothers collapse a year ago retreats further from public consciousness, some experts fear that a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put to rights the system of controls and strengthen investor protection is slipping away. Has enough been done to prevent a rerun of the biggest boom and bust since the 1929 crash?
Continue Reading