[PEN-L:29498] Re: PK on current events

["pms" <laflame@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: PK on current events

My boss has been buying property.  He thinks because there are foreclosures in the nice neighborhoods the bubble has burst and this is a safe place to put his money.  He still has a ton of silver coins he bought in the last PM bull.  But he thought I was silly to buy gold stocks when gold was under $280.   Said it was gambling.  Go figure.

----- Original Message -----

From: Devine, James

To: Pen-l (E-mail)

Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 11:41 AM

Subject: [PEN-L:29486] PK on current events

The most interesting thing about Paul Krugman's NY Times column (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/opinion/16KRUG.html?tntemail0) is that he cites Dean Baker's work approvingly:> More and more people are using the B-word about the housing market. A recent analysis by Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic Policy Research, makes a particularly compelling case for a housing bubble. House prices have run well ahead of rents, suggesting that people are now buying houses for speculation rather than merely for shelter. And the explanations one hears for those high prices sound more and more like the rationalizations one heard for Nasdaq 5,000.

>If we do have a housing bubble, and it bursts, we'll be looking a lot too Japanese for comfort.<

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine