# Bubble Boy: Hyman Minsky's universal framework for understanding all bubbles.



## SLAPPY

It makes me sick to my stomach to think that the value of my crappy little City West Apartment could go down, but the current market is starting to freak me out.   Anybody else thinking of selling to protect my profits, or just me???    My brother-in-law is thinking of buying a pre-construction 3 bedroom townhouse at Melbury Oak in City West for the amazingly low price of 900,000.    I didn't realize you could get a ocean view that far inland.  It seems to me that the developer may have overshot the price by 500,000 or so.   I don't recall the last time I read a negative article on property values in the paper.   Maybe it is because developers are their biggest advertisers????     I wish somebody would have warned me that the stock market was in a bubble six years ago.   Would have saved me a few quid.     I stole the next section of my post from another web site on the seven stages of a bubble.   Ireland is clearly still in the euphoria stage.   Looking forward to some feedback on this baby. 

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The late Hyman Minsky knew that there was nothing new under the sun. If her were alive today, he would have understood exactly the dilemmas raised by today’s explosive growth in real estate prices.Minsky developed a simple universal framework for understanding all bubbles. The circumstances of each bubble may differ, but each one goes through seven stages.

*Stage One – Displacement*

Every financial crisis starts with a disturbance. It might be the invention of a new technology, such as the internet. It could be a shift in economic policy. For example, interest rates might be reduced unexpectedly. Whatever it is, the world changes for one sector of the economy. People see the sector differently.

*Stage Two – Prices start to increase*

Following the displacement, prices in the displaced sector start to rise. Initially, the price increase is barely noticed. Usually, these higher prices reflect some underlying improvement in fundamentals. As the price increases gain momentum, people start to notice.

*Stage three – Easy Credit*

Increasing prices are not enough for a bubble. Every financial crisis needs rocket fuel and there is only one thing that this rocket burns - cheap credit. Without it, there can be no speculation. Without it, the consequences of the displacement peter out and the sector returns to normal.When a bubble starts, the market is invaded by outsiders. Without cheap credit, the outsiders can’t join in.

Cheap credit is the entrance ticket for outsiders. For example, gas prices have risen sharply in recent years. However, banks aren’t giving out loans so that people can store gas in their garages in the hope that the price will double in three months. The banks, however, are prepared to give loans to people with poor credit to hold condos in the hope that they can be quickly flipped.

The rise in easy credit is also often associated with financial innovation. Often, a new type of financial instrument is developed that miss-prices risk. Indeed, easy credit and financial innovation is a dangerous cocktail. The South-Sea Bubble started life as new-fangled legal innovation called the limited liability joint stock company. In 1929, stock prices were propelled into the stratosphere with the help of margin calls. Housing prices today accelerated as interest-only mortgages emerged as a viable means for financing overpriced real estate purchases.

*Stage Four – Over-trading*

As the effects of easy credit kicks in, the market starts to overtrade. Overtrading stimulates volumes and shortages emerge. Prices start to accelerate, and easy profits are made. More outsiders are attracted, and prices run out of control. Accelerating prices attract the foolish, greedy and the desperate to enter the market. As a fire needs more fuel, a bubble needs more outsiders.

*Stage five – Euphoria*

The bubble now enters its most tragic stage. Some wise voices will stand up and say that the bubble can no longer continue. They put together convincing arguments based upon long run fundamentals and sound economic logic. However, these arguments evaporate in the heat of the one over-riding fact – the price is still rising. The wise are shouted down by charlatans, who justify insane prices by the euphoric claim that the world is different and this new world means higher prices.

Of course, the “new world” claim is true; the world is different every day, but that doesn’t mean that prices run out of control. The charlatan wins the day and unjustified optimism takes over. At this point, the charlatans bolster their optimism with the cruelest of all lies; when prices finally reach their new long run level, there will be a “soft landing”. The idea of a gentle deceleration of prices calms the nerves.The outsiders are trapped in knowing denial. They know that prices can’t keep rising forever, but they rarely act on that knowledge. Everything is safe so long as they quit one day before the bubble bursts.Those that did not enter the market are stuck in a terrible dilemma. They can not enter but neither can they stay out. They know that they have missed the beginning of the bubble. They are bombarded daily with stories of easy riches and friends making massive profits. The strong stay out and reconcile themselves to the missed opportunity. The weak enter the fire and are damned.

*Stage Six - Insider profit taking*

Everyone wants to believe in a new brighter future but a bubble takes that desire and turns it upside down. A bubble demands that everyone believes in a brighter future, and so long as this euphoria continues, the bubble is sustained.However, as madness takes hold of the outsiders, the insiders remember the old world. They lose their faith and start to panic. They understand their market, and they know that it has all gone too far. Insiders start to cash out. Typically, the insiders try to sneak away unnoticed, and sometimes they get away with it. Other times, the outsiders see them as they leave. Whether the outsiders see them leave or not, insider profit taking signals the beginning of the end.

*Stage seven - Revulsion*

Sometimes, panic of the insiders infects the outsiders. Other times, it is the end of cheap credit or some unanticipated piece of news. But whatever may be, euphoria is replaced with revulsion. The building is on fire and everyone starts to run for the door. Outsiders start to sell, but there are no buyers. Panic sets in; prices start to tumble downwards, credit dries up, and losses start to accumulate.

Here is the paradox of all bubbles – everyone knows how the fatal combination of easy credit, overtrading and euphoria will affect prices. Minsky didn’t need to write down a thing about the madness of speculation. America’s investors have a lifetime of experience. Within the space of five years, America moved from the tech stock bubble into the real estate bubble.Today’s housing prices are grossly overvalued. Everyone knows that prices will collapse. It might be tomorrow, or it might be two years from now. One thing, however is certain, the longer it takes for the bubble to burst, the more painful it will be.

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Also, check out my recent post on the state of the U.S. bubble under the Investment Property section called "Bubbles really can burst"


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## ionapaul

*Re: Bubble Boy*



> Those that did not enter the market are stuck in a terrible dilemma. They can not enter but neither can they stay out. They know that they have missed the beginning of the bubble. They are bombarded daily with stories of easy riches and friends making massive profits.


 
Almost all of my friends (mainly in our late 20s / early 30s) feel like this...


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## CafeCulture

*Re: Bubble Boy*

I too- in my early thirties agree! Why can't people see the light???? Lots of nice 3/ 4 bedroom semis in the general Citywest area for around 400,000. Why waste that amount on an apartment??

Look at Adamstown- what madness- no 'real' houses available. *Hope you have a big umbrella when this bubble bursts!!!*


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## Calina

*Re: Bubble Boy*



			
				CafeCulture said:
			
		

> I too- in my early thirties agree! Why can't people see the light???? Lots of nice 3/ 4 bedroom semis in the general Citywest area for around 400,000. Why waste that amount on an apartment??
> 
> Look at Adamstown- what madness- no 'real' houses available. *Hope you have a big umbrella when this bubble bursts!!!*


Nope, I shall go out dancing in the rain. 

People don't want to see the light. They have dollar signs in their eyes and a conviction that they'll buck the trend.

I want to pay a fair price for my home. I don't think the prices now are fair.


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## ivuernis

*Re: Bubble Boy*



			
				Calina said:
			
		

> I want to pay a fair price for my home. I don't think the prices now are fair.


 
Couldn't agree more. I think most people given the choice would just like to be able to own a home that doesn't cost the earth and where they can sleep easily at night and not worry about the prices dropping. 

Unfortunately with the way things have gone that choice is no longer an option so people are left with either staying out of the race or jumping on board and hoping for it to go up in value to justify the big prices being paid.


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## CelloPoint

*Re: Bubble Boy*

Thought I'd drag up this thread - nothing like another read of Hyman Minsky to brighten up the Thursday morning!

I believe we've moved on a stage since:


			
				SLAPPY said:
			
		

> Ireland is clearly still in the euphoria stage



IMHO, we have moved from stage 5 in March, and are now at stage 6: 'insider profit taking'.


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## whizzbang

Welcome to stage 6, Stage 7 will be with you soon.


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## phoenix_n

whizzbang said:


> Welcome to stage 6, Stage 7 will be with you soon.


 
Agree with you on that.


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## Guest107

phoenix_n said:


> Agree with you on that.



I Turd that, we are a borderline 5/6 now. Stage 7 will be a post SSIA thing in my opinion, starting this time next year.

The fools will buy the _soft landing _guff in the interim.


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## whizzbang

2Pack said:


> The fools will buy the _soft landing _guff in the interim.



Here's a soft landing for you  [broken link removed]


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## brophs

Banks selling their branches and leasing them back. Insider selling I guess !!


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## qwerty1

The trick to avoiding all this is to marry well.

No seriously, twas instructive to see Garrett Fitzgerald last night, at 80, more coherent than the current taoiseach.


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## SmallPrint

The bubble burst in the late 1980s in England too... I only just managed to get out in 1990 as property prices started to plummet.  They crashed around 50% in my neighbourhood, and they landed just above where they were when Stage 1 started happening in the mid-1980s. 

That's when Negative Equity kicked in and the 20/30 somethings who paid well over the odds with a 100% mortgage for a tiny box found that they couldn't sell the thing.  It didn't help that interest rates went up too, to add insult to injury.  Them were lean times, my friend.  The only people who seemed to benefit were the banks.


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