corysub
Posts: 1492
Joined: 1/1/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: celticlord2112 quote:
If he is right everything is in place for recovery but the recovery will not happen until trust is reestablished. Begs the question of how does trust get re-established. If government stimulus won't do it, if massive infusions of cash won't do it......what does it take? Time...it's going to take "time" for trust to be re-established across the board. Some things could happen a lot sooner than we think...take housing, four example. Unless one had been in a coma through the 1990's it was pretty obvious that housing prices in some parts of the country were insane. I used to travel a great deal to California from New York and would stand with my mouth wide open looking at the prices people were paying for little cape cod houses in Santa Monica or down towards San Diego....oftentime twice what a similar structure would sell for on Long Island. And than, after paying $700,000 for the house, they would TEAR IT DOWN and build something that would be on the market for $2 1/2 - $3 million!. People were buying two and tree condo's in Florida and Las Vegas on spec...often selling them at a profit before they were even built! Greenspan kept money easy, the banks were choking on liquidity, and you could buy property with no money down and interest only mortgages, with no income check. Wall Street grasped the opportunity to package loans and securitize mortgages and re-sold them to investors all over the world! What took two decades to get to the point of "irrational exubeance" and un-fettered greed is not going to be cured overnight. However, the Federal Reserve has been more agressive in pumping money into the system to increase the velocity of money that when it begins to impact the economy we may all be surprised just how quickly things improve. The first step is getting mortgage rates below 5% where they are currently, and where refini's are starting to boom! That brings liquidity back to the consumer, already being helped with crude oil trading in the 30's, versus $145 this past summer. The next step will be to see applications for new home buyers starting to gap on the upside. That could happen within the next few months as we get closer to the spring season. The stock market is already reflecting an improvement coming over the next six months with its bottoming action over the past month. There is a big question mark, however, that can put us into a depression! If Congress insists on saving the planet with stupid, unprofitable, green projects and does nothing to help job creation by profit oriented businesses...the downward spiral we have been in could resume with a vengence. The ball is now in Obama's court...and Pelosi's. Are they up to the challange, along with Rangle, Reid and Frank....or are we going to see the same dysfunctional Congress interfere in the free-market system? Time...Time is what we need to restore confidence. Time to see actions taken not words spoken....Time to reflect on the course to take to protect our families...Money and gold in the mattress...or investment in America.
< Message edited by corysub -- 12/24/2008 4:08:29 PM >
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