Quoting Steve Perlstein of the Washington Post, who recently wrote: Let’s recall those heady days of 2006 when home prices were rising 10, 15, even 20 percent

Quoting Steve Perlstein of the Washington Post, who recently wrote: Let’s recall those heady days of 2006 when home prices were rising 10, 15, even 20 percent a year, allowing millions of homeowners to refinance mortgages and collectively take out more than $300 billion in cash from the increased value of their properties. Some spent the money on furniture, appliances, cars and vacations, adding fuel to an already roaring economy. Others reinvested it in the already booming real estate and stock markets. When it finally occurred to everyone that those houses and those stocks weren’t really worth what the ­debt-fueled market said they were, markets crashed, banks flirted with insolvency, and the economy sank into a deep global recession. Now, 12 years later, it’s happening again. This time, however, it’s not households using cheap debt to take cash out of their overvalued homes. Rather, it is giant corporations using cheap debt — and a one-time tax windfall — to take cash from their balance sheets and send it to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and, in particular, stock buybacks. As before, the cash-outs are helping to drive debt — corporate debt — to record levels. As before, they are adding a short-term sugar high to an already booming economy. And once again, they are diverting capital from productive long-term investment to further inflate a financial bubble — this one in corporate stocks and bonds — that, when it bursts, will send the economy into another recession. Go read the whole piece. Whether you agree or not, it will make you think: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/beware-the-mother-of-all-credit-bubbles/2018/06/08/940f467c-69af-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/beware-the-m...