Has Jerry Bowyer Ever Made His Apologies to the Emperor?
Economics of Contempt: The Unofficial List of Pundits/Experts Who Were Wrong on the Housing Bubble:
Jerry Bowyer, Author of The Bush Boom: "Hate to Burst Your (Housing) Bubble: But there isn't one," National Review (July 5, 2006).
Jerry Bowyer
Hate to Burst Your (Housing) Bubble. But there isn't one: A few weeks ago, BuzzCharts came across this headline: “80% Believe Housing Bubble.” Now, we don’t claim to know everything about the housing market, but we do know this: If 80 percent of people believe that an asset is grossly overvalued, it’s not. By definition, there’s no way the crowd can believe the crowd is wrong and be right in believing it…. Recent data have supported what Larry Kudlow, Brian Wesbury, Steve Forbes, and BuzzCharts have been saying all along: A housing slowdown will take place, and it will be orderly. No bubbles. No pops….
The Fed doesn’t set mortgage rates. When it “raises rates,” that just means it is removing money from the economic pipeline. Not only doesn’t this procedure increase mortgage rates, but over the long run it reduces inflation and permits the markets to lower mortgage rates. Yes, the housing market has cooled in 2006. But think of this: The Fed has hiked its overnight interest rate 17 times in a row and we’re still selling almost 7 million houses per year. Meanwhile, median home prices are almost exactly where they were one year ago. All this is because the economic fundamentals that have been driving housing are still driving it.
