What Real Estate Bubble? Oh, You Mean the One That's Bigger Than the 2007 Bubble?
It's painfully obvious that real estate valuations are once again at asset-bubble extremes.
Correspondent Mark G. submitted a chart of the Wilshire REIT (real estate investment trusts) index that sums up the current real estate market in one image: it's painfully obvious that real estate valuations are once again at asset-bubble extremes, one that's even bigger than the last RE bubble that popped in 2008 with devastating consequences to the global economy.
Defenders of current real estate valuations can draw upon an array of justifications, but they boil down to the same one used to justify valuations in every asset bubble: this time it's different.
Is there anything in this chart that suggests this belief might be misplaced, for example, that credit/asset bubbles burst with a rough time/amplitude symmetry?
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The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education
Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economy
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We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.
Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:
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2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy
Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).
We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.
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