the current zeitgeist I cull from the ether

[Spartacus]

(one level down from the mainstream the perpetual cheerleaders)

is that governments & central banks have shot the last of their ammunition and now can do nothing but hope it works.

If anything really bad happens now, they are powerless.

This new concensus seems stronger than the 2002/2003 doldrums.

In Canada the RE pumpers still seem in the majority (as recently as a a couple of weeks ago I read a ton of pro-RE posts on Garth Turner's blog), and while they are losing steam ("prices down, sales down" articles are appearing in the major papers, which a month ago were claiming "no bubble"), they're far from throwing in the towel - Just a week ago a friend of mine in banking tried to justify his plans to get an investment property with this:

"Canada's correction already happened, recovery's taking hold and nothing too bad looks probable in the near future. "

[jerkface]

Re: the current zeitgeist I cull from the ether

To me it's pretty simple to explain. Our economy is a faith based system. You have faith that a dollar is worth a dollar because some other guy will give you a dollar's worth of good's or services for it and that you are getting value for your dollar. Well the government and some of our biggest companies have kind of ruined the faith we have in the system and its to the point where cheaters don't even bother hiding anymore. IE: refer to telecomm profits in Canada.

The only measure left available, that will restore my faith in the economy, is if those people and organizations that are taking advantage of the system start getting called out and potentially punished.

This is how I see the situation in Northern AB. During the last few years our economy was really great, in 2005-2008 it was on fire and everyone was drunk with money. It was not uncommon for people in the trades to be making 100,000+ based on LOTS OF OVERTIME, and the banks were happy to lend them money based on this figure. All of this growth was fueled by expansion in the oil field and related sectors. Anyone that dared come out and say `Watch out, this won`t last forever, it didn`t last time` was labeled a pariah. Fast forward to 2009 & 2010 and things have started to slow down and unemployment is not up very much, but hours are way down. Companies have cut living out allowance and OT for tonnes of workers - these are the same guys that might have bought an RV, vacation home, quad etc over the past few years off the credit banks were handing out like candy. Use the equity in your home was being shouted from every rooftop.

The number of houses built in Alberta over the last few years is insane, I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Well now the jobs aren`t what they used to be so who is going to buy all these houses? Especially when people that do have money are looking south to Florida, California and Arizona and saying: WTF am I doing buying a 1200sq ft house for $400,000 in cold ass Edmonton when I can buy 2 houses for the same price down south?