too late again on this post. blast from the past. read it. take what you may. still applies till fall in october after the pump of better than expectations falls out.

I made mine many times for fun, how about a Harry Wanger prediction now.

yes, it does seem, too much, that way..

if this: “There is no penalty for it anymore.” realization, really, does take root here, we’ll be in for some, truly, nasty weather, and, certainly, not the kind whose rains sustain future cornucopias..
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cornucopia

It is true that consumers and small investors drive a large portion of the economy. And it is true that consumers and small investors, in turn, are largely driven by their perception of what is happening.

But I would also argue that all of the happy talk in the world won’t turn the economy around when the fundamentals of the economy are lousy, or there has been a giant bubble and vast overleveraging, or there has been massive fraud, or the government has gone so far into debt that it has formed a black hole.

Happy talk did not work during the first couple of years of the Great Depression, once the speculative bubble and leverage of the Roaring 20’s burst, leading to the inevitable crash.

As economist Irving Fisher pointed out (as recounted by economist Steve Keen):

Hobbled by this naive belief in equilibrium, the economics profession was as unprepared for today’s crisis as it had been for the Great Depression. Now that the crisis is well and truly with us, all conventional “neoclassical” economists can offer is the hope that the crisis can be overcome by a good, strong dose of confidence.

From [Irving] Fisher’s point of view, such a belief is futile. In an economy with an excessive level of debt and low inflation, he argued that confidence was irrelevant–and in fact dangerously misleading, as he knew from painful personal experience…”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/09/economy-will-not-recover-until-trust-is.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/

well, worth reading, the post, in full, and, the weblog itself..

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as a former mortgage broker who participated in that bubble, believe me, most people didn’t think about morality. it was about putting food on the table. i can only speak of my experience, but most of my cohorts came from the other bubble, tech and tech investments, or other sales jobs. real estate was the next, only train to jump on around 2003 after the nasdaq/9-11 recession. now, no more trains.

if you made big money in real estate, you likely believed in what you were selling, and have 4 or 5 investment properties in foreclosure. or just one house in foreclosure. just like the insiders at Bear, Lehman, AIG who rode their holdings down to nothing.