China : the Weakened Dragon
February 18, 2024The 2008 financial crisis marked a decisive turning point in the Chinese economy: adverse effects of which are still being felt today. Fearing contagion that would affect their banking system and the detrimental consequences of a decline in exports due to the slowdown in global demand, Chinese officials believed—following the path laid out by the…
German Subprimes
December 16, 2022Real estate storm to come in Germany where residential construction is plunging at the same rate as mortgage applications.
When real estate threatens growth
April 13, 2016It’s not a coincidence if real estate prices – relatively stable up until now – suffered unhealthy volatility at the dawn of the 1990s. This phenomenon was the direct consequence of integrating the banking and financial systems together because deregulation and innovations such as securitisation intensified the flow of cross-border and transcontinental capital, thus inducing…
Real estate, growth’s parasite
May 29, 2015The meager European economic growth – often described as anemic – stems from a savings glut. Economic stagnation becomes secular from the moment the money stops flowing, that is, once the investor keeps his precious cash in his bank account and that bank is no longer able to recycle it towards productive sectors of the…
The real estate standard
April 28, 2015At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. government seriously considered nationalizing a large chunk of the American banking system. Instead, what it did was take effective control of the massive U.S. mortgage market. Without Federal guarantees and full government support, the U.S. real estate market (already under critical pressure from the subprime…