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Comments, gentlemen?

NO flame wars, please.

I know barely enough to know that I am ignorant.

But based on empirical evidence so far I lean towards mild Austrian school.

Cheers!

Largely on the mark. What is needed is an enormous de-leveraging, but this is a tricky proposition to accomplish.

Dubious 'assets' have to be liquidated, but this of necessity must be a piecemeal process, else we risk a gigantic deflationary spiral.

The fact that this nation is wildly overbuilt is apodeictic. The realty analyses in the article seem spot on to me, perhaps even too generous as to the estimate of recovery time in that industry.

The simplest way to restart the economic engine -- which, of course, will not occur -- is to suspend, indefinitely, any and all regulations, taxes and fees which operate against the creation of new jobs by the private sector. Atop this, add an enormous tax on outsourcing jobs to other nations.

Point #6, particularly, has occurred in this nation previously. Its first cousin, appraisers being in bed with lenders (S&Ls in this case, not investment banks) was the fuel added to the fire that produced the S&L meltdown in the '80s. Appraisers and raters must be kept at a long arm's length away from lenders. This is twice; if we cannot learn this lesson, might as well not bother with the rest of it; the boom-bust NEXT time will be the end of the game.

There already is a massive asset-value reset for real estate. The social networking hype is stupid, stupider than the internet bubble. There is plenty of lending available and rates are rock bottom but there aren't many takers, because momentum monkeys can't do anything until a bell rings screaming "bottom" and "everyone in the pool", which happens about 5 minutes before a top.

There are in fact generational opportunities in real estate today, to borrow long at low rates and buy up distressed properties, utterly ignoring the current cash flow. No it isn't "hiding" anything for that to be acknowledged all around the table. The present state of demand is the temporary variable that won't be sustained. Sure a speculator wants another leg down to buy lower; tough toenails. There are in fact more deals out there than all of them combined care to take up, already at distressed prices.

Overall, the article is a piece of group think idiocy staring in the rear view mirror of the last quarter or two. Instead of trying to time every bottom (did he get into bonds last December? Get into stocks in March? Didn't think so...), just negotiate the price. Waiting around for other people to tell you which way prices will move is stupid. Just go bid what the price ought to be.

Oh, you don't know that? Then crap about "80% of this price adjustment" and 75% of that one, is crap...