There are so many cracks in the foundation, it is impossible to guess where the collapse will begin:
Housing in major cities in China has seen price hikes over the last year that resemble the famous Dutch “Tulip Fever” bubble of 1637, according to new research by economic consultancy firm Longview Economics.
“I think what’s going on in China is troubling … some of the valuations there are really quite extraordinary,” Chris Watling, the CEO of Longview Economics, told CNBC Thursday. “We’ve double checked these numbers about seven times, because I found them quite hard to believe.”
The firm’s research found that only San Jose in the Silicon Valley is more expensive than Shenzhen. The Chinese city has seen prices rise 76 percent since the start of 2015, with the acceleration beginning in April 2015 as the country’s stock market was nearing its peak. The situation in Beijing and Shanghai is similar, albeit less extreme, the company states.
“Housing in some of the tier 1 cities is more expensive than it is in London, which I think itself is on a bubble, Watling added. “The (stock) market exploded to the upside and then crashed dramatically. That money had to go somewhere, so it washed around the system … so a lot of it has gone into housing.” The analysis suggests that the typical home in Shenzhen costs approximately $800,000. Watling said that the house-income ratio in Shenzhen is now running at 70 times, compared to around 16 times in somewhere like London.
Everywhere you look, the Apocalypse is lurking. Ideally it hits before Trump takes office, but there bubbles everywhere, panicky investors waiting to get spooked, and thus there are no guarantees.
Trump needs to blame this on the entire establishment now, and say anyone can see that it is coming. If it doesn’t hit on his watch, great, he just called it early. If it does hit during his administration, he should have laid the groundwork now to place the blame on all of the politicians who set this up by saying he saw it before he took office. He needs to be able to say that he told everyone it was coming, and his prescience was proof that it was all Obama’s and the establishment’s fault.
You know that the establishment, after laying the groundwork for this for years, is already planning to lay the blame entirely on him, when it hits. Now is when he can thwart them.
Yes, indeed. He really needs to get ahead of this. I’m surprised that he hasn’t already done this.
Excellent advice.
Trump has made reference to this “bubble” situation repeatedly at his rallies, so he may have covered himself. But I’m not sure he’s hitting it hard enough lately.
But with Trump, he’ll have enough video of him saying it at rallies to claim “see, I saw it before anyone else.”
Economically, China looks more like late 80s Japan everyday.