I rarely mention anytime I’ve been interviewed. However, I was reviewing a casual conversation I just finished with one of my readers, Bob Unger, and I thought Bob’s questions led to a well-rounded expression of how, over the past two years, our economy got to the collapse we are in now, how predictable the Federal Reserve’s policy changes and failures were, why economic recovery has stalled, and why the stock market was certain to crash twice this year, including why the second crash would likely hit around September.
I’ve found Bob’s interviews with others interesting, so I recommend checking out his YouTube page. I had no idea where the interview below would go, but it wound up encapsulating my main themes for the past two years:
David Haggith is the publisher/editor-in-chief of The Great Recession Blog.
Seeing the Great Recession Before it Hit
My path to writing this blog began as a personal journey. Back in 2007, my (now ex) wife had a family home that was an inheritance from her mother, which she and her brother had been holding onto for several years because real-estate was always appreciating. I worked as a resort property manager back then, and I was certain from my own observations in the industry and from my readings that the U.S. housing market was on the verge of catastrophic collapse. Even though real-estate agents I talked to thought I was nuts, I urged my wife to press her brothers to sell the family home before prices collapsed. They eventually complied and sold the home just three months before Bear-Stearns made it obvious some deep financial troubles were brewing, taking the U.S. housing market down for the tumble. Her family sold near the peak of the market. I realized, then, the value of urging people to take actions based on what I believed would happen.
Why should I have known the housing market and banks would crash when Al Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve board members clearly did not?