How surprised were you at the depth of the economic crisis?

[El Pinko]

I know a lot of people who back in 2005 or so thought everything was hunky-dory, and thought I was nuts because I was talking about a real estate bubble and crash back then.

And since then, everything has gone pretty much as I had expected - a slow-motion unwinding and collapse.

Did you think everything was hunky-dory in the mid-2000s?

Heck, it was only 8 months ago that National Review Whore Larry Kudlow was still claiming we were in a "goldilocks economy"!

So...

Were you surprised to find the United States staring at the precipice of becoming another Argentina?

[femmedem]

1. Other: my only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner.

I've thought it was inevitable for about three years.

[stillcool]

8. me too..I thought the bottom..

was to suppose to fall out in 2006.

[El Pinko]

11. It started to fall out in 2006...

But for months and months, as more and more places started to experience price drops, buyers who bought between 2004 and 2006 were in complete denial, asking more for their house than the market would bear, confused at why they couldn't sell, even though the asking price only represented a small profit. Then a few months later, they were offering it at a small loss, and then eventually, at a huge loss.

The bubble had a LOT of momentum in the form of denial and wishful thinking by Flippers and the like. Hell, they STILL show flipping shows on cable TV!

[glowing]

2. Its not really surprising..

If middleclass doesn't have money, who do they think is going to buy their crap? People have been struggling for some time now.. and the offshoring of real jobs that make tangible things is a huge problem.

[Roon]

3. Not surprised at all

For the last two years my Grandfather has been saying,"Something has to give, sooner or later."

I think the now times are what he was talking about. My Grandfather is 87-years-old.

[tech3149]

4. I remember when Bernanke was before the Senate

for his appointment. The tool had the nerve to say there was no housing bubble. I almost choked to death with laughter.

[On the Road]

5. The Real Estate Bubble Was Just Waiting to Pop

but the widespread failures of so many banks, brokerages, and insurance companies are a schock, especially in the speed with which things have developed.

[El Pinko]

6. If you looked into it at the peak of the bubble, it was not a surprise.

I had already read about how the subprime loans had been chopped up and bundled up and repackaged as "solid mortgage-backed securities", which were sold the world over to unwitting investors.
And they were the cornerstone of the $42 trillion credit default swap market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap Which means that layer upon layer upon layer of debts were secured on the basis of the worthless paper of subprime and liar loans. When the subprime borrowers started to default en masse, that pulled out one of the bottom cards of our economic house of cards, and the government has been trying desperately to keep it standing with bits of scotch tape and wishful thinking ever since...

[On the Road]

13. Losses Were to be Expected

Bankrupticies were not a surprise. But the sudden tidal wave extending to insurance and brokerages, the safety of money market accounts, bank runs, and commercial credit drying up, threatening the entire economy -- that is a shock.

[Javaman]

7. Anyone that had been paying attention wouldn't be the least bit surprised. nt

[redqueen]

9. Surprised? Quite the opposite.

It's disgusting to me that those so-called "experts" are treated with any respect.

I wonder if they're evil or just stupid.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Bush put the Trainwreck Express on the rails when he invaded Iraq.

Wars are expensive. Unwinnable wars even more expensive. Borrowing to fight unwinnable wars is incredibly expensive.

[The2ndWheel]

12. This would be easy to fix if you only had to go back 28 years

More like the history, complexity, and momentum of the last 2800 years, at least.