Saturday, February 9, 2008

PICK THE BOTTOM CONTEST!

I'm putting aside a #1 Thor comic (2007 version) as a prize to whatever anonymouse picks the bottom in housing prices. It ought to be still worth cover price, 2.99, by the time this contest is over....

Since it's my contest, I'm picking the moment when the housing price changes on the Bend Economy Bulletin board are 50% up and 50% down.

If that doesn't happen within say 3 years, I pick the December 2010 as the moment I'll pick who I think came closest. Unless it still hasn't hit bottom, in which case we're all doomed.

Assuming, of course, that we're all still around when this contest is over.....

Please pick a nickname.

My pick? December 2009. I get dibs first.

5 comments:

rotorman said...

rotorman says dec. 2016.

(hope the blog is still going then)

Duncan McGeary said...

Blog, hell. I hope I'M still going then....

Anonymous said...

One of my relatives years ago married into one of the richest familys in the NW years ago, at the wedding I had a chat with the matron of the family, these be billionaires, old money going back to when the NW was outfitting Alaskans for the Gold-rush.

We got talking about economics. She told me her family had had a trust setup since 1905, that every heir in the family got $1M at 18, and $1M thereafter yearly for life, and now there were great-great-great grandchildren, and they were still all getting the money and it would never run out. ( I didn't ask her about indexing )

I asked her how this was possible, she said the family had trusts set up, international money managers that only focussed on capital preservation out 2-4 generations always planning, and investing, and predicting. That these money managers had been in operation for 100's of years. That they had economists always thinking 100 years out at all times.

She told me ( This was ten years ago ) that in 2006 there would be a great recession when the baby boom ended. That there would be poverty until after a great war (WWIII), that there would not be another boom until 2025 when children of that war returned to become the next crop of baby-boomers.

The basic model is that with the end of the US baby-boom, there will be no more manufacturing, Americans don't need anything else, ... Everything would slow down, and massive job loss would occur 2008-2018, then their would be a great war.

I heard her story in about 1998, and I always thought about her world view ever since, and so far everything, this very old matron predicted has unfolded.

*

I'll not comment on your date duncan, because I believe Ben Graham, and Warren Buffett that only a fool and a liar can call tops and bottoms. We'll know we have been there only after we have been there.

I told the story above, because I really do think there are people who plan and think very far out. It always impressed me, because I had never given much thought to planning your finances out 100 years. There are people who do.

I think this is going to be a very long recession/depression.

Meany-Mean said...

February 2009

Bend Economy Man said...

According to the Central Oregon Builders Association, it's the best buyer's market in 20 years!

So I guess that right now is the bottom!

Just kidding. I think the bottom will be just before Spring 2010, as in, in Summer 2010 prices will start heading back up again.