I hope not. Have you looked at the Nikkei index? They have been in a deflationary cycle since the late 80's. 20 years. Yikes. That is a long time! 

The Nikkei is down almost 80% in the past 20 years and their federal bank rates have been close to 0% almost the entire time, and it has been at 0% since 1999!!! The Dow hit those kind of down numbers only in the great depression and we are making those kind of cuts to the fed now too. It makes one wonder about "bubbles." 

We all know about the recent commodities bubble this summer that has popped. Oil is down from $150/barrel to $50/barrel. It was one of the few bright spots in the stock market this year (if you owned oil and gas stock), but not so at the gas pump. We are still at the bottom of the bubble for real estate that popped the last few years. 

The tech bubble popped in 2002 I believe it was. Tech is still in a funk, although parts of it like Apple have done well recently. 

And the poor Japanese have still not recovered from their insane real estate bubble of the 80's. That is scary. 

Am I the only person tired of bubbles? My daughter loves to play with them. Who would have thought they could be so dangerous!

But that is just fear right?

Howard Hughes became a billionaire due to a lot of the investments he made in the 30's during the depression. It takes fortitude to buy in a market where there is so much fear. Wall Street is paralyzed by fear right now. But who do I see buying right now? Besides first timers and people moving up, the most I am seeing are the wealthy. I have had only 2 out of my last 12 buyers use a loan. The rest paid cash, which gives them leverage in negotiations in a buyers market. Interesting.

Fortunes are being made right now by buying at the bottom. Buy low, sell high. Who would have thought it was so hard to do? Join the Arizona gold rush. It is in real estate right now!

Marc