According to the popular way of thinking, bubbles are an important cause of economic recessions. The main question posed by experts is how one knows when a bubble is forming. It is held that if the central bankers knew the answer to this question they might be able to prevent bubble formations and thus prevent recessions.
It now appears that Housing Bubble II is cooling. After the Fed drove mortgage rates down to around 3.35% in May for a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, home prices started climbing. In the sand states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, among the hardest hit areas, home prices increased by an average of about 25%. Bloomberg reports that mortgage applications have declined 17% since May and that price reductions are occurring on 25% of listed homes.
For Austrian economists doing economics is not about measuring things. However, it still can be useful to gauge the economic environment, whether that is the near term or long ago. Michael Pollaro here provide such an update of the money supply from over at Forbes. According to Pollaro:
Many young people want to know what has caused this ongoing economic crisis and many are looking for places to study Austrian free market economics. One University that is often overlooked is Troy University. Its faculty contain several free market economists who are sympathetic to the Austrian School of economics including former Mises Summer Fellows Dr. G. P. Manish and Dr. Malavika Nair. Troy University is located in Troy, Alabama not far from the Mises Institute.
Review
| SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2013
The Skyscraper Index: Edifice Complex
By ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
The U.S. has a new tallest building—One World Trade Center in New York—and that has conjured up some novel reading of economic tea leaves.
To some, a new skyscraper is a sign that hubris has again swept the land. The announcement last week that the U.S. has a new tallest building—the 1,776-foot-high World Trade Center, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat—conjured up a novel reading of economic tea leaves.
Guest Post: Galling Government
by Gary Galles
Americans live with paternalist government that nudges (and shoves) them to do what it deems best and “help” everyone with everything. But government is just flawed people with worse information and worse incentives than the individuals directly involved, putting reason and evidence on liberty’s side.
As I explained in my Mises Daily article on Friday, on 15 November 1923, German hyperinflation was finally brought to a halt. That was 90 years ago. This image is titled: “Gutenberg and the billion press”.
