by The Practician » Mon 07 Nov 2011, 16:50:29
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') sought articles and analysis on projected house prices, and came across two divergent predictions: level/growth (most stories); and bursting bubble. I noticed a clear difference in the flavor of the articles. The bursting bubble stories used lots of numbers, stats, and analysis. I’m a sucker for that....Meanwhile, the level/growth narratives tended to be hand-wavy: San Diego was such a desirable place to live that homes would not lose their value. The expanding diversity of jobs into high-tech further insulated San Diego against downturn. The activity was not speculative because families—not investors—were actually buying and moving into homes at the elevated prices. We had reached a new normal in prosperity.
This Is probably the main reason I count myself a member of the doomer camp. I think of predicting the future of anything as a sort of complicated
Algebraic equation. You take a number of variables, decide how big an issue they are, assign them positive or negative values, and then you do the math. It seems to me that most of the more serious or creditable people in the Doomer camp are doing their math with a larger number of variables, and are able to provide more rational and comprehensive justification for whatever particular value they assign to those variables, than even the most sober cornucopians.