Tag Archives: Inflation

When The Fed Speaks, Housing Listens

Especially since the 1990′s, home prices have largely been driven, directly or indirectly, by the actions of The Fed. The Greenspan Fed enabled the Credit and Housing Bubbles, and the Bernanke Fed is doing everything it can to keep them inflated, extending and pretending, hoping the fundamental core economy will eventually catch up.
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Posted in Banking and Finance, Economic News, Foreclosures and Short Sales, The Daily Hotsheet | Tagged Bernanke, Deflation, Foreclosures, Greece, greenspan, Home Prices, Inflation, QE2, QE3, Shadow Inventory, The Fed | 7 Comments

Priced in Gold, is Housing Cheap?

In terms of the median price, it took almost 600 ounces of gold to buy the median priced house in 2005.

Then housing collapsed, and gold rocketed from $500/oz to $1,500/oz. As a result of housing declining by 40% and gold tripling, the ratio has plummeted by 80%, from 500 to just above 100. Continue reading

Posted in Fresh Perspectives, Home Economics | Tagged Case-Shiller, Gold, Home Prices, Inflation | Leave a comment

Why housing prices belong in CPI

Whether you define deflation in terms of credit, in terms of purchasing power of the dollar, in terms of the CPI, or in terms of the Case-Shiller CPI, to the complete consternation of screaming hyperinflationists, those predicting deflation got it correct. Continue reading

Posted in Foreclosures and Short Sales, Home Economics | Tagged Deflation, Home Prices, Housing Bubble, Inflation, The Fed | Leave a comment

The Endgame Headwinds

Before we can get to how I think the Endgame of the debt supercycle plays out in the US, we need to quickly survey the current environment, and revisit (at least for long-time readers) a few basic economic themes that I will call the “headwinds” of economic growth. So many leaders in so many countries think that with the right policies they can grow (export) their way out of the problem. As I have written, not everyone can grow their way out of a crisis at the same time. Someone has to buy. Continue reading

Posted in Fresh Perspectives, Home Economics | Tagged Debt, GDP, Inflation | Leave a comment

The “Miracle” of Compound Inflation

Higher inflation means US debt is easier to pay back, as nominal GDP is what we pay taxes on, not inflation-adjusted. Inflation is a tried and true method of dealing with too much debt. Inflation is also just another word for default, but it sounds so much better to the ear. Continue reading

Posted in Economic News, Fresh Perspectives | Tagged Debt, GDP, Inflation, Interest Rates, The Dollar | Leave a comment