From Paper Economy – A U.S. Real Estate Bubble Blog, yesterday: It’s no doubt that we live in speculative times, so in an effort to keep perspective on a day in which the traditional media will endlessly debate and interpret the outcome of the latest S&P/Case-Shiller report, let’s reflect for a moment on Robert Shiller’s [...]

Found on MetaFilter: The Skyscraper Index. V, Double dip (W) or L recession? Things look bad for the EURO if the skyscraper index is right. We have heard recently about problems in the Eurozone. Is the worst over or is the worst still to come? The skyscraper index indicates: Trouble ahead. The Skyscraper Index is [...]

What do you think the value of the White House is, just as piece of property? According to the blog on Zillow.com: $292,470,000, a drop of almost $24,000,000 or 7% from last January. After the health care fiasco, the value of the actual Presidency might have dropped a similar amount…

In response to our post yesterday about long-term housing prices in the U.S., Carlos on Facebook points us to this post from the blog casaCara – Old Houses for Fun and profit, called “The rise & fall & rise & fall of Amsterdam real estate.” The post references a 2006 New York Times Magazine article about the fluctuations in value since 1628 of a single house in the Dutch capital.

* Home prices doubled in five years (1628-1633) as the city boomed on trade with the Far East, and the establishment of the world’s first stock exchange

* 1635-1637. The bottom dropped out of the real-estate market in the wake of ‘Tulip Mania’ (out-of-control speculation on, of all things, tulip bulbs, which were then a great novelty) and the Plague, which killed 14% of the city’s population. Home prices fell 36%.

* Following those twin calamities, the housing market “quickly stabilized; by the early 1640’s, prices had surpassed their previous heights.”

In case you missed it in our last post, it’s worth breaking out this chart of U.S. home prices since 1970, provided by the blog Bubble Meter. When you look at it now, it’s hard not to think “Of course there was a bubble!” (Just like when you look at my favorite long-term chart: The [...]

Since the country, in the form of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is now officially delving into the causes of the financial collapse, it might be instructive to take a look back at who among the analysts and punditocracy thought the housing bubble — a precursor to the systemic implosion — wasn’t really a bubble [...]

Today marked the first meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Christian Science Monitor reports: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is a bipartisan 10-member committee that’s been handed the job of recording what went wrong prior to the near-collapse of the world financial systems in 2008. Congress has ordered the commission to work through [...]

That’s right. It’s Christmas Eve eve, er, eve. What a fine time to check out these parodies from the holiday songbook on Marcy Shaffer’s Versus web site. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot More Riskless” Lyrics here “The Cinders of Ayn Rand” Lyrics here “Oh CRE” Lyrics here “Go Tell It In Accountin’” Lyrics here

From the Empty buildings for economic reasons photo pool: Click on an image to see it full size. More photos here.

Haiku mania continues. Coming to us over the Facebook transom from Patricia Milton: The cash for clunkers program worked. Shiny new cars in foreclosed driveways.