In this week’s Barron’s, Thomas G. Donlan mentions (but not by name) Mark Thornton’s work on how the completion of notable skyscrapers mark the end of booms.
Donlan quotes Niall Ferguson, who thinks the Euro is headed “over the cliff and back to European disintegration.” So when can we expect the Euro to go to fiat money heaven? Donlan writes:
Ominously, to those who have noted how often business crises follow the construction of new headquarters buildings, the European central bank is in the middle of building a new skyscraper in Frankfurt. It will open in 2014, if the central bank survives that long.