Economy Wonks

midcan5

liberal / progressive
Jun 4, 2007
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America
I once read that it took until 1954 to recover from the stock market crash of 1929. Imagine then your retirement savings and a crash, scary stuff, but still you hear how wonderful the market is? I have been testing a few investment companies for future retirement and I am beginning to think the depression folks were right - use the mattress. Anyway I didn't read this yet, and if anyone has some interesting and intelligent insights please share them. PS I am usually not a fan of AEI or so called think tanks that should really be called non-think tanks as they often know what they are looking for and miraculously find it.

"This paper examines the behavior of real GDP (levels and growth rates), unemployment, inflation, bank credit, and real estate prices in a twenty one-year window surrounding selected adverse global and country-specific shocks or events. The episodes include the 1929 stock market crash, the 1973 oil shock, the 2007 U.S. subprime collapse and fifteen severe post-World War II financial crises. The focus is not on the immediate antecedents and aftermath of these events but on longer horizons that compare decades rather than years. While evidence of lost decades, as in the depression of the 1930s, 1980s Latin America and 1990s Japan are not ubiquitous, GDP growth and housing prices are significantly lower and unemployment higher in the ten-year window following the crisis when compared to the decade that preceded it. Inflation is lower after 1929 and in the post-financial crisis decade episodes but notoriously higher after the oil shock. We present evidence that the decade of relative prosperity prior to the fall was importantly fueled by an expansion in credit and rising leverage that spans about 10 years; it is followed by a lengthy period of retrenchment that most often only begins after the crisis and lasts almost as long as the credit surge."

AEI - Papers


"What is called sound economics is very often what mirrors the needs of the respectably affluent." J. K. Galbraith
 
I think this is absolutely true:

"We present evidence that the decade of relative prosperity prior to the fall was importantly fueled by an expansion in credit and rising leverage that spans about 10 years"
 
I would advise advise you to get, or if you already own it reexamine, a copy of "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham and really study it. What you do at that point depends on how much time and skill you can bring to bear on your portfolio but that should be your starting point.
 

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