graphrix_IHB
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Ben really should stick to movies, and STFU when it comes to economics. I have posted many times about his lack of basic understanding of econ in the headlines thread before, and while Barry at the <a href="http://bigpicture.typepad.com/">Big Picture</a> has suggested to ignore the Ben Steinery, I just can't when he is on planet Stein. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/business/27every.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin">Here is the latest Steinery</a>, and here are the follow ups from <a href="http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/07/27/ben-stein-watch-july-27-2008"> Felix Salmon</a>, and <a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=07&year=2008&base_name=ben_stein_says_everything_is_f">Dean Baker</a>. This same person (Ben Stein), had this to say about the housing bubble in 1984...
<em>December 8, 1984
THE DAY LOS ANGELES'S BUBBLE BURST
By BENJAMIN STEIN ; BENJAMIN STEIN'S LATEST BOOK IS ''FINANCIAL PASSAGES.''
My pal Jerry P. just bought a condominium in Century City, in Beverly Hills, for 60 percent of what it sold for in 1980. Down the street from me here in the Hollywood hills, four houses have been on the market since 1981. The asking prices now are about one-third less than they were three years ago. Up and down Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, apartment houses that were converted to condos lie empty, boarded up, not one unit sold, in bankruptcy, with banks holding title.
New Yorkers do not like to believe they could learn anything from California, but perhaps in this one case they might try.
The Southern California residential real estate boom began in about 1974. It was not just a boom. It was a superboom, with miserable bungalows in Santa Monica running up from $40,000 in 1974 to $400,000 by 1980. Two-story colonials in Beverly Hills went from $200,000 to $800,000 and then over a million. One-bedroom condos in Hollywood were built and sold for $100,000 - what a house in Beverly Hills had been five years before. Every day, home buyers would look at the prices and say, ''It can't go on.'' But every day, for five years, it did go on. Middle-class families were priced out of the market, and the brokers said, ''But the rich will always be able to buy.'' Ordinary rich people were squeezed out of the market in some areas, but the brokers said, ''Never mind, the music business people will buy anything.'' The music business fell into a depression in 1979, and the brokers said, ''The foreigners are buying. Compared with Paris or Teheran, real estate in Holmby Hills is a bargain.''
Everyone wanted to get in to the game, get the down payment on a house, somehow struggle with the payments for a year, then sell out and get rich quick. Inflation pushed housing prices into the stratosphere. But even when inflation stopped, brokers said, ''The prices have nothing to do with inflation. Everyone on earth wants to live in L.A. The price will go up forever here, no matter what else happens in the rest of the country.''
Then the music stopped, some afternoon in 1980. As if a spell had fallen over the city, suddenly things began to stay on the market for three months, six months, a year, two years. Buyers disappeared. Asking prices stayed high, but nothing sold.
The great Southern California real estate boom was over. Prices had gotten so high that they could no longer be justified by inflationary expectations, or the influx of foreigners, or the climate, or for any other reason.
Now, four years later, those brokers who are still in the game tell sellers to expect that their houses will be on the market for two years. Other brokers have sold their BMW's and are now working as ''financial planners'' or public-relations people, dreaming of the days when they worked for 6 percent of infinity.
Not long ago, I was in New York City looking at co-ops, talking with recent buyers, would-be buyers, brokers. The conversation is eerily familiar. Listen to the buyers: ''Of course, we'll take two extra jobs and avoid having kids to buy this studio apartment facing an airshaft for $150,000. Next year, it'll be $250,000.'' And the brokers: ''Of course, there aren't many Americans who can afford to buy here any longer. But there will always be rich foreigners. New York is the most exciting city in the world. New York is unique, and two bedrooms on the West Side should cost half a million dollars.''
Do not believe it. Trees do not grow to the sky, and the great New York co- op boom will eventually go the way of the great L.A. bubble. Yes, New York apartments were underpriced for years. Yes, New York is an exciting place. Yes, there are a lot of rich people who like New York. Yes and yes and yes. But no real estate bubble ever goes on forever, and the day when everyone agrees that it will go on forever is usually the day it ends.
Maybe this boom will go on a little longer. Maybe, as some of my banker friends tell me, it has already started to totter. Who knows, exactly? But when buyers consider tying themselves in knots to get onto the housing merry-go-round, in the certain belief that they have a sure thing by the tail, they might remember the housing boom in L.A. and the shuttered condos in West Hollywood. The only thing certain about housing bubbles is that they never last.</em>
Can you believe this is the same person, or do you think he has the Kool-Aid mainlined into his veins?
<em>December 8, 1984
THE DAY LOS ANGELES'S BUBBLE BURST
By BENJAMIN STEIN ; BENJAMIN STEIN'S LATEST BOOK IS ''FINANCIAL PASSAGES.''
My pal Jerry P. just bought a condominium in Century City, in Beverly Hills, for 60 percent of what it sold for in 1980. Down the street from me here in the Hollywood hills, four houses have been on the market since 1981. The asking prices now are about one-third less than they were three years ago. Up and down Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, apartment houses that were converted to condos lie empty, boarded up, not one unit sold, in bankruptcy, with banks holding title.
New Yorkers do not like to believe they could learn anything from California, but perhaps in this one case they might try.
The Southern California residential real estate boom began in about 1974. It was not just a boom. It was a superboom, with miserable bungalows in Santa Monica running up from $40,000 in 1974 to $400,000 by 1980. Two-story colonials in Beverly Hills went from $200,000 to $800,000 and then over a million. One-bedroom condos in Hollywood were built and sold for $100,000 - what a house in Beverly Hills had been five years before. Every day, home buyers would look at the prices and say, ''It can't go on.'' But every day, for five years, it did go on. Middle-class families were priced out of the market, and the brokers said, ''But the rich will always be able to buy.'' Ordinary rich people were squeezed out of the market in some areas, but the brokers said, ''Never mind, the music business people will buy anything.'' The music business fell into a depression in 1979, and the brokers said, ''The foreigners are buying. Compared with Paris or Teheran, real estate in Holmby Hills is a bargain.''
Everyone wanted to get in to the game, get the down payment on a house, somehow struggle with the payments for a year, then sell out and get rich quick. Inflation pushed housing prices into the stratosphere. But even when inflation stopped, brokers said, ''The prices have nothing to do with inflation. Everyone on earth wants to live in L.A. The price will go up forever here, no matter what else happens in the rest of the country.''
Then the music stopped, some afternoon in 1980. As if a spell had fallen over the city, suddenly things began to stay on the market for three months, six months, a year, two years. Buyers disappeared. Asking prices stayed high, but nothing sold.
The great Southern California real estate boom was over. Prices had gotten so high that they could no longer be justified by inflationary expectations, or the influx of foreigners, or the climate, or for any other reason.
Now, four years later, those brokers who are still in the game tell sellers to expect that their houses will be on the market for two years. Other brokers have sold their BMW's and are now working as ''financial planners'' or public-relations people, dreaming of the days when they worked for 6 percent of infinity.
Not long ago, I was in New York City looking at co-ops, talking with recent buyers, would-be buyers, brokers. The conversation is eerily familiar. Listen to the buyers: ''Of course, we'll take two extra jobs and avoid having kids to buy this studio apartment facing an airshaft for $150,000. Next year, it'll be $250,000.'' And the brokers: ''Of course, there aren't many Americans who can afford to buy here any longer. But there will always be rich foreigners. New York is the most exciting city in the world. New York is unique, and two bedrooms on the West Side should cost half a million dollars.''
Do not believe it. Trees do not grow to the sky, and the great New York co- op boom will eventually go the way of the great L.A. bubble. Yes, New York apartments were underpriced for years. Yes, New York is an exciting place. Yes, there are a lot of rich people who like New York. Yes and yes and yes. But no real estate bubble ever goes on forever, and the day when everyone agrees that it will go on forever is usually the day it ends.
Maybe this boom will go on a little longer. Maybe, as some of my banker friends tell me, it has already started to totter. Who knows, exactly? But when buyers consider tying themselves in knots to get onto the housing merry-go-round, in the certain belief that they have a sure thing by the tail, they might remember the housing boom in L.A. and the shuttered condos in West Hollywood. The only thing certain about housing bubbles is that they never last.</em>
Can you believe this is the same person, or do you think he has the Kool-Aid mainlined into his veins?
