What we did have was a housing bubble and collapse with the consequent falling over of large parts of the banking system.
Over-exuberant expectations about profits, allied with an artificially cheap cost of capital thanks to a stockmarket bubble, encouraged firms to over-invest.
The real estate bubble is like a popcorn popper with different markets frothing over and peaking at different times, but all will burst ultimately.
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Everyone has been so concerned about a property real estate bubble bursting over the last year but the steps to deal with it have worked.
Lest anyone think that crisis is a specialty of the Bush years alone, recall that the Clinton administration, along with presiding over the dot-com bubble and the incubation of Sept. 11, featured a major bout of emerging-markets crisis.
Like so many other spirits, I was first introduced to the cane spirit during college after it had been blended (poorly) into a trash can filled with sparkly carbonated stuff a ton of artificial fruit juices, some citrus that I think was left over from the previous year, bubble gum and some hard candies with ice bought at the gas station up the street.
With all the teeth-gnashing over the real estate bubble, the bust and the mortgage mess, you can be forgiven for failing to notice this little tidbit: Housing had a superb decade.
Las Vegas comes in second, with its bloated inventory of homes left over from the housing bubble.
MSN: Orlando, Las Vegas top the list of emptiest U.S. cities
As with previous bubbles over the last three decades, the commodities bubble has been financed by excessive borrowing.
FORBES: As Predicted in December, Commodity Bubble is Popping
But once they are over the construction bubble will burst, and the city could well be left with thousands of surplus hotel rooms.
Same with the over-allocation of capital to housing 2001-2007 which ended in the bubble that got us to this frustrating spot. psperry wants Bernanke to raise short-term interest rates slightly in order to crack oil and gold and food prices so that we can start over from a worse place and lead up to another boom.
FORBES: The Open-Ended Bernanke QE3 Won't Be Open-Ended For Stock Prices And Commodities
But they have thrown a cloud over Wall Street generally--along with the economic slowdown and the bursting of the high-tech bubble.
The attendant will work up an almighty lather with an enormous sponge and squeeze it all over you - it is a bit like taking a bubble bath without the bath.
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