Land values are the root of the issue - along with too much debt.
by StFerdIII
The 'root cause' [to use a popular media term], of the current financial quasi-collapse is of course real estate prices. Until real estate values begin to settle, and stabilise, and until the over built inventory of excess housing is cleared, the financial system will not normalise. The $6 Trillion of bad bank paper which still exists, is founded and dependent upon declining real estate prices. The financial system won't be 'saved' until the value of these bad real estate assets are understood; and until housing prices based on supply and demand and price points, stops declining.
What sense does it make then, to spend Trillions of dollars in bailouts and in printing money to give to firms when the underlying issue which has caused the problem in the first place, is not addressed ? Money broker and manager Peter Schiff - who called this decline and collapse some years ago - expects that the 'stimulus' package will only make matters worse. He is right. The Dirty Thirties are a testimony to government bailout failure.