Money makes the world go around...

A good comment from Markoz..

MarKoz here: I had really thought that the stagnation in sales and surge in listings last year was the beginning of the end. I was wrong. I had always considered government intervention in the RE market to be somewhat random, and that ultimately market forces would bring prices down. I now believe that no provincial or federal government will let prices down as long as their members have a pulse ...... I know that nearly 70% of Canadians are homeowners. Virtually all politicians are certain to be homeowners....

He is absolutely right. The politicians will do everything they possibly can to prop up real estate. It is the big kahuna. The result of it's collapse can be seen in the US. Wide spread bankruptcies, unemployment and bank bail-outs.

It's too bad they weren't a bit more concerned on the way up, allowing banks, speculators and regulators to behave completely irresponsibly. If you allow a huge unstable tower to be built in front of your eyes, don't you think it could come crashing down one day??

What more can they do in Canada if/when the down-trend resumes?

Not a lot.

Interest rates are already rock bottom and tax-relief on mortgages or other mechanisms to support prices will just exacerbate the huge deficit. (BTW the UK just posted it's largest ever deficit). So their options are becoming very limited.

Firstly we have to get one thing straight- who are these much maligned politicians? Are they aliens bread in captivity sent to rule and ultimately destroy our planet. No. On the whole they are just like us. Apart from the odd Billionaire like Paul Martin the rest of our pols are fairly regular Joes..who like to feel important (and popular). Some have a vision, others are guided by polls.

They will tell us what we want to hear, not what we (deep down) know has to happen. This is the same the world over. The response to the financial crisis, which by the way was completely avoidable, was to loosen money even more...punish savers yet again...and reward irresponsible activities, especially by highly paid bankers.

Was there an alternative. You bet, but I am not sure anyone would like it very much. Let real estate drop.

1) Let all assets drop and find their natural support.

2) Let the big banks fail if need be.

3) Pay up on insured accounts.

4) Seize the bonuses of the bankers responsible and let the chips fall where they may

The result would have been a catharsis of default and even possibly a rapid depression. Awful, yes. But the excesses of the last twenty years of bubbling assets, deregulation, greed and materialistic orgy would have been dealt with in one fell swoop.

Governments would be there to pick up the pieces afterwards and stop people from starving -at a much lower cost. Then we would have had to rebuild a system that was not based on fractional lending or which did not allow the privatization of profits and the socialization of losses.

Were we ready for this around the world?

Not at all.

So our politicians did their damnedest to plug the hole, for now. As one economist said..."they just kicked the can down the road". The degree of debt that they are accumulating will require a huge expansion in the economy to service, if that doesn't happen there will be a de facto default which is monetization (you print the money to pay your debts).

Future generations won't be burdened by it, because it will probably come to a head in the next few years and will have to be dealt with: by slashing and cutting, or defaulting and printing money.