The Importance Of Asset Bubbles

“When you live in a bubble, everyone is delusional…” – -Nouriel Roubini, May 11 2010 Charlie Rose interview Many people fail to see any asset bubbles in our current economic environment.  Others see isolated asset bubbles.  As I have previously stated in the April 8 post,  “Our societal inability to spot and prevent asset bubbles …

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ECRI On Frequency Of Recessions

I recently came across a notable excerpt in ECRI’s “U.S. Cyclical Outlook” of December 2009 (pdf): “The bottom line is that long expansions are needed after severe recessions to undo the damage.  After the 1932-33 depression, not even four years of expansion were quite enough, despite 10% annual GNP growth.  This time trend growth is …

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America’s Economic Future – A Comment

Those familiar with this blog know that I believe (based off of my overall analysis) that our current purported economic recovery is not sustainable. As I have indicated in previous writings, we as a nation need to be more “strategic” in nature if we are to attain true Sustainable Prosperity. One critical question that we …

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America’s Economic Future

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here is a passage from Larry Summers’ March 13, 2009 speech that speaks of the importance of economic strength in achieving broader societal goals: “Our single most important priority is bringing about economic recovery and ensuring that the next economic expansion, unlike it’s predecessors, is fundamentally sound and not …

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The Global Economic Situation

On this blog, I have maintained a focus on the U.S. economy.  I have done so for a variety of reasons, many of which are explained in this June 21 2009 post: https://www.economicgreenfield.com/2009/06/21/the-global-economic-future/ Additionally, from a practical perspective, from a time standpoint it would be prohibitive to attempt to comment on all global economic affairs that I consider relevant. …

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Characteristics Of The Housing Bubble

Given the incredibly outsized intervention efforts in the residential real estate market, I think it is important to examine some dynamics of the real estate bubble. Here is a chart from the 12/15/09 Contrary Investor commentary that I believe is interesting, as it depicts some underlying residential real estate fundamentals.  It shows the equity and mortgage …

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Sustainable Prosperity

One of the terms that I frequently mention is “Sustainable Prosperity.”  I think the term and its meaning have tremendous significance to our economic future at this juncture. Providing an exact definition for the term is difficult due to the complexity of the underlying concepts. “Sustainable” can be defined in terms of time, as well …

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Larry Summers On Growth – March 13 2009 Speech

Here is one more excerpt from Larry Summers’ speech of March 13.  I find this excerpt to be of particular significance with regard to the concept of Sustainable Prosperity: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2009/0313_summers.aspx “Of fundamental importance is ensuring that we do not exchange a painful recession for another unsustainable expansion. That would not only be irresponsible – it …

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Larry Summers On Bubbles – March 13 2009 Speech

As I, as well as others, have been frequently mentioning bubbles, I thought it would be interesting to post a few comments (excerpts) that Larry Summers made concerning their effects during his March 13, 2009 speech.  I found these comments to be very interesting, especially in light of our current economic condition and prospects for Sustainable Prosperity. …

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