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April 20, 2009

3

What Happens After Our Economic Storm Passes?

by Bob Schwartz

California’s unemployment rate just hit 11.2 percent in March, the highest rate on record. California has the nation's fourth-highest unemployment rate, behind only South Carolina, Oregon and Michigan.

The unemployment rate in San Diego County rose to a record high of 9.3 percent in March, up from 8.9 percent the previous month, the state Economic Development Department reported Friday. The March unemployment rate in San Diego County is the highest to be recorded since the way the figures are calculated was changed in 1990.

 

San Diego real estate market: The longer term trend still seems to be looking toward a lot more pain as there are major economic and social changes that will have to be worked out before a sustained recovery can happen and these will take many years. There are also trillions in debt that will have to be mitigated before main street recovers and that is bad news for financial institutions.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes we've only acknowledged $1.29 trillion of the $4 trillion in total global credit losses to date. That means we're not even a THIRD of the way through the process.

To me it seems certain that when this economic storm has passed, we will no longer hold the global economic high ground. Can't happen here? Consider that the economic high ground has changed every 250 years for the last 750 years. The Dutch lost the economic high ground to Spain. History remembers it as the Tulip Bubble. 250 years later, Spain lost it to England and England lost it to us 250 years ago. We are in the process of losing the economic high ground to China.

Each of those economic transitions was caused by the same two conditions: The losing country had accumulated more debt than their economy could support and the losing country had such incredible hubris they were unable to see it.        San Diego real estate blog

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3 Comments
  1. Expect first stagflation (high inflation and high unemployment), both because of the increased price of imports and deliberate pump priming by the Fed, then deflation, as asset prices collapse so hard they take everything else with them. The other likely scenario is stagflation followed by hyperinflation. Formal inflation numbers put out will become not just a joke amongst market-watchers, but amongst the actual population. Same thing with unemployment numbers.

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  2. Obviously, the big homebuilders have a different perspective, but the bottom line is the same. Prices will continue to decline until unemployment stops growing.

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  3. Not all foreclosures are due to bad mortgages. I would imagine a healthy number are from folks being out of work too. High and prolonged unemployment has gotta spike the foreclosures.

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