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Random Conundra
Friday, July 22, 2005
- Why is there such confusion about the correct plural for conundrum?
- How can economists say that the underlying economy is strong, when the underlying economy is based, to a frightening degree, on rising real estate values, which everyone acknowledges are, at the very least, potentially problematic?
- What's the next asset bubble?
- Do condo-flippers think that Alan Greenspan's comment about housing "froth" is like the irrational exuberance comment from 1996 - that this asset inflation still has years to go and the biggest gains are yet to come?
- Consumption as a percent of GDP - U.S. 71%, China 42%.
- A nearby office building, able to accommodate many hundreds of workers, was used by a defense contractor in the 1980s, then leased to a technology company in the 1990s. It was recently purchased, and handsomely upgraded, by Countrywide Financial. Who will use it in the next decade?
- Will the masses ever catch on to the bogus inflation statistics?
- In a recent Q&A session, Mr. Greenspan noted that even if many banks were to fail, that does not necessarily mean that liquidity would decrease - there are many new ways to inject money into the system, outside of traditional banking and monetizing government debt.
- How long before thrift comes back into style?
- What does it say about the world we live in when the words "refinance" and "re-fi" have become such a standard part of American lexicon? How about "bubble", "housing bubble", and most recently "flippers"?
- Have the Chinese learned anything from Japan's experience in the 1980s? What are the implications to the world economy if they have?
- Shouldn't the word "deflation" be stricken from the language? For those hearing the word today, what possible meaning could it have maintained after being misused by so many people over the last few years?
- To what extent is personal investing like organized religion? The details of both are complex and nebulous, so faith plays a large role, while the intermediaries have some similar qualities.
- If U.S. home prices collapse and the Chinese economy somehow continues to chug along, would stripping abandoned U.S. homes of their raw materials to ship to China become a viable business?
- One bright spot regarding the current lack of savings in America - this greatly reduces the likelihood of a run on the banks.
- If Microsoft is intentionally doing things to the MSNBC website so that Firefox does not display the contents properly, aren't they more likely to succeed in turning readers away from MSNBC than to discourage them from using Firefox?
- What was so hard about tabbed browsing?
9 comments:
#14 is definitely worth looking into.
What's the next bubble? Don't know. But to find out go find all those folks who majored in Art History in college and who then went into web design during the dot.com boom and then became real estate agents during the current housing boom. Find out what their next plan is and that will be the next bubble.
You can always tell a blogger's age by their comments. The idea of a run on the banks is from the 1930's. Those who've been around a while know that this would only be a valid worry if this were 1932.
Bank runs cannot possibly do any damage in this day and age, or for the last 60 years.
#2 The economy is NOT based on higher RE values to ny "frightening
degree." If that were true, the economic acceleration for the past four years would have been practically straight up, which it wasn't. What makes anyone believe that when RE values fall, the result will be an economy going straight down? My spending hasn't been influenced in any way by the changes in RE prices. Why in the world do you think it would be if
RE prices go down rather than up?
The title of this blogspot is nonsensical. Blaming Greenspan is
about as valid as blaming all of those other 10,000 economists, none of whom foresaw a flattening yield curve this time around. And I'm quite sure the guy who created this blog didn't see it, nor did he warn of lending practices that started 5 years ago. If low interest rates created the bubble,
how come the bubble is so uneven across the country, when rates are everywhere the same? You see, the argument about low rates doesn't explain very much at all, now does it? Noe would low rates expalin the dot com bubble.
"Consumption as a percent of GDP - U.S. 71%, China 42%."
Substitute Japan for China and nothing's changed, just the source of US manufactured products. It's
been that way for the past 35 years. Nothing new.
The US is a service based economy, not a manufacturing economy, at least not to the extent China (and Malaysia, Tawain,etc) is.
"To what extent is personal investing like organized religion? The details of both are complex and nebulous, so faith plays a large role, while the intermediaries have some similar qualities."
What's so complex and nebulous about investing in Proctor an Gamble? Most of those on these blogs are investing in the notion that a RE bubble exists and that prices will crash and that they will then walk in and buy up properties from prostrate owners for pennies on the dollar (nice guys). Investing in the notion of a RE bubble - now that's nebulous and complex!!
"How can economists say that the underlying economy is strong, when the underlying economy is based, to a frightening degree, on rising real estate values, which everyone acknowledges are, at the very least, potentially problematic?"
They can say it's strong because it is strong. Duh!
The economy is based in virtually no way on rising RE values. Any "Wealth effect" (which is an unsubstantiated theory) is
relatively small and of no threat to an economy that is not unduly weak. Exaggerating dangers is of no value in discussing the RE bubble. I've lived thru a few collapses of RE and the effects were virtually invisible. Like the effects of the dot com busrting. Nothing much happened, except those heavy into tech stocks got clobbered. And the morons came to
believe that all tech stocks had the plague, and missed out on the current boom. They didn't learn anything from their fears. Their fears misled them because they were illogical.
"How can economists say that the underlying economy is strong, when the underlying economy is based, to a frightening degree, on rising real estate values, which everyone acknowledges are, at the very least, potentially problematic?"
They can say it's strong because it is strong. Duh!
The economy is based in virtually no way on rising RE values. Any "Wealth effect" (which is an unsubstantiated theory) is
relatively small and of no threat to an economy that is not unduly weak. Exaggerating dangers is of no value in discussing the RE bubble. I've lived thru a few collapses of RE and the effects were virtually invisible. Like the effects of the dot com busrting. Nothing much happened, except those heavy into tech stocks got clobbered. And the morons came to
believe that all tech stocks had the plague, and missed out on the current boom. They didn't learn anything from their fears. Their fears misled them because they were illogical.
I am at a complete loss for words, when faced with a critic who obviously possesses such superior intellect and reasoning ability.
I feel honored that my humble prose has held his attention for 39 minutes on a Sunday afternoon, and only hope that I can in some way better my life, after having been graced with his presence.
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