whereas the last graph showed a hook with a small gasp of a rebound, this chart has clearly rolled with no signs of coming back up. ask yourself, what is your biggest personal asset? if you're a home owner this one is easy. therefore, if no one is taking out RE loans to buy more houses this means that house prices are going to continue down. if we were threatening hyperinflation, everyone and their mother would be rushing to the banks and borrowing to buy a house (a tangible asset whose loan would inflate away, ie, a free house).
This one is pretty silly. Half the country just got burned badly by the real estate market, and the other half knows someone who did. Even if "Hyperinflation will start tomorrow" was written in flaming letters across the sky, people wouldn't be jumping back into houses.
In my view, the people that are sure that hyperinflation won't happen here are just as crazy as the people that are sure that it will.
The US economy and the US dollar are seriously fucked up right now. The current condition cannot continue much longer. There will be a change, a big change, and it has a pretty good chance of getting nasty.
But, as bad as things are, it is still the best game in town. The importance of this global view cannot be overstated. There will be no apocalypse while the US remains the safe haven.
So, while the doomsayers are right that the US appears to be doing everything it possibly can to usher in a serious bout of hyperinflation, it won't happen today, or tomorrow. It might not ever happen at all.
i sure hope you're not saying my pt was silly. i think we're saying the same thing. think about it, if you feel HI is right around the corner, the best thing to do is to go out and take out the largest most leveraged loan you could get, typically a mortgage (most favored tax haven and favorable terms), and buy as many houses as possible. the banks got seriously hurt in the 1970's by giving out too many easy RE loans which got inflated away. this is one of my critical pts; they aren't going to repeat this mistake by leveraging up and spraying USD's all over the economy. and if you don't get HI, how is gold going to go to the moon?