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Originally Posted by GreyWolf
There is nothing magical about 30% - it could be more or could be less depending. To reach the 20% level, that is simply 10%/year for the next two years and, again depending, if nothing is done about the economy, it's very easy to clock-up another 10% or more in the third and subsquent years.
Read some of Shiller stuff - that's well documented and there is no reason to think otherwise than that the housing market will drop at least 10%/year over the next few years (and could be more depending on other pressures).
Don't rely on a hyped analyist to make some claims of booming real estate values - they are often employed by the people who were so greedy in the first instance and who enabled substantial elements of the sub-prime market to cause problems - not just for their own companies, but for many individuals.
If there is reason to believe this could be otherwise - I've never heard it yet, tho it's well-known there has been a combination of hype from Wall Street, the Whitehouse and the media as to how rosy the garden looks. Unfortunately there is no actual evidence of this and based on past track record - this is being trusted less.
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I will read up on his stuff, he seems interesting. I don't follow the housing market outside of the areas I live in. I just can't foresee housing dropping 20-30% in the parts of Chicago I am in. I mean I've seen some places drop a little off their asking price, but I'm still seeing condos selling left and right around here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyWolf
Canada does not owe the world anything like the debt carried by the US. Canada also has a thriving economy and substantial evidence of a healthy future economy. That is one country where a fair degree of investment is happening now. Why? Because industry/markets are performing profitably.
Canadian markets over the last five years have produced a return of 60% and is second in line from UK markets at 64%. On the same topic there is classic illustration and another example of an economic problem in the US where markets produced only 18% over the same time span.
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Well Canada does have a debt to GDP ratio just as high as the United States. They wouldn't owe as much as the US because their GDP is under 10% of the United States.
As for the future of the Canadian economy, I still think problems in the US will hurt them. They export a ton of stuff to the US and almost all the foreign investment comes from the States as well. They've tried to seperate themselves as much as they can, but they are still too tied in to avoid the impeeding storm.