The problem is you need someone that’s consistently one position to qualify as a broker clock. Even the NAR now has had some negative predictions, even though they’re predictions are (almost?) always off.

And speaking of bad predictions, it seems in this thread Godwin got it entirely backwards!

Would you care to name a particular “broken clock?”

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/imbeciles.htm

Taleb says that bank failures are inevitable. A banker is fellow who takes risks such that he only goes bankrupt when all of the other bankers go bankrupt too. By acting in that way he gets profits most of the time, but doesn’t have to accept responsibility when the inevitable black swan appears.

And even those that are right on an issue–many of them are right because they were wrong for 10 years and then something finally happened. The “broken clock” situation.

Also, most of the “named experts” were wrong. Why would you care what they think now?

I see plenty of others were eager to discuss the subject though. Thanks to everyone for chiming in!

Cautious buyer, you missed the point. You really don’t want Eleua’s world to appear, what he is talking about wasn’t really the 60’s or 70’s. Much worse.

If we get the systemic bank failure that I have been predicting, you will need the ability to sustain yourself for a few months. While a bunker may have practical applications in the future, I don’t think the war will be for at least two years. Your resources are better spent building relationships and stockpiling food, cash, fuel, and learning how to use a shotgun.

@Leanne,

When I say 60s/70s, I am saying that we will rollback several decades as the depression destroys wealth and people that have been living off the FIRE industries will have to retool to meet the demands of repatriated industry. Look at the lifestyles of the 1920s and then the 1930s. We were better off in the 1880s/90s. Societies expand and contract. First Century Rome was far better off than 5th Century Rome.

While I will admit that the average person may not have had the ability to see the financial doom we were building, look around at people that had the facts rudely shoved in their faces, and continued to believe that we could just flip property and paper back and forth to create wealth. Many of these people were very well educated, but were blinded by their circumstances. I’m also of the opinion that many of the people that were running these large institutions lacked the wisdom to see more than 3 months in the future. Their compensation is always based upon hitting their numbers, rather than securing their future. WM’s Killinger would be my poster-boy for this phenomenon.

Lest we think I am being excessively arrogant, I will freely admit that my industry (air transport) had sealed its fate by 1999, and it was readily apparent that it was going to implode by mid-2000, I didn’t come to that reality for another two years. It is very difficult to see your own livelihood as being unsustainable in its present form when you are drawing paychecks.

Remember, debt is the antithesis of wealth and our societal priorities relating to commerce should be to build and sustain wealth and the means of production. Housing is not production, but an end-use consumer item. Finance is nothing more than a means to direct money to its most productive end, rather than a means unto itself. Goldman Sachs produces nothing. It is an intermediary between people with money and those with the means of production.

Leanne, I feel the conflict within you. Come over and join us on the Dark Side. It is your destiny.

Darth Eleua – unofficial ray of sunshine for Rain City Guide.

No doubt people will go through some tough times. Those in real estate may take a disproportionate share of the burden. I doubt people will be forced to downgrade to only 1 station wagon per family though!