Saturday, September 09, 2006

Wikipedia: Biggest Bubble in History: Or so the Economist has described the worldwide housing bubble.

This is a lengthy Wikipedia article on the housing bubble with lots of links and references. As can be seen from the graph, the peaks are roughly 18 years apart. Unfortunately there is no mention of the George/Hoyt/Harrison theory of the business cycle, which once again one would think is getting confirmation. As a result there is no discussion of land value trends generally, which is the underlying phenomenon. It seems unlikely that residential land values would soar heroically while industrial and commmercial remained stationary. But the focus for years now has been on the 'housing bubble' as if that were the case. [Update: there's a broken link to an article by Fred Foldvary.]

There is also no discussion of the Australian bubble, which has been as pronounced as anywhere.

If we follow past trends, we will be in for a terrific global recession following such a massive land boom, which could coincide with the bankruptcy of the US treasury and defeat of the US army in Mesopotamia...

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