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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (59185)	8/5/2006 4:31:38 PM
From: gladman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

>>the tapped-out-refi-driven US consumer<< That's an invented myth that some people just can't get over. It sells magazines and makes nice doomsday scenario conversations at cocktail parties... nothing more. Most people that quote that are cutely saying "look at how dumb they are and how smart I am not to get caught up in the RE mania" It just ain't true and there's no real data to back that statement up in entirety. It's an easy trap to connect these dots: Non-Traditional loans, HELOC, High consumer debt and Refi's but after you look at the picture you can only speculate on the outcome.

To: GST who wrote (59185)	8/5/2006 5:57:52 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

On the global stage, the number of people you are talking about looks more like a rounding error than a dominant economic force. If I look around the world and see what is going on and then ask myself if the tapped-out-refi-driven US consumer is the key to it all, the answer is no. Will the economy slow? Yes, I think we are pretty stagnant now for a while -- and if we don't get more globally competitive then we are likely to be stagnant for a long time. The world will carry on mostly without us, with some places stagnating along with us while others push on and grow at a fairly rapid clip. A rounding error? Yes in terms of total, numbers of people employed. In terms of AMOUNT of wages paid I have one word to say: Bullshit. Yes the US will become less important as time goes on. You keep looking light years ahead, ignoring the problems at hand. China and India are nowhere near ready to take over the role of the AMOUNT of money us consumers spend. Furthermore, IF and WHEN they are, it will mean nothing but more pain for the US. The US will be totally F'd when China no longer cares about the US consumer. You are light years ahead of the problem of the US dollar and the irrelevance of a decline in US consumer spending and housing. Mish