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Comment by z5h | Hacker News Reader

All the experts have been talking about a housing market collapse in Toronto for the past 15+ years. It’s been imminent and inevitable year after year … after year. Well, I guess these complex systems are hard to predict. But OK, let’s suppose this true. What are the best/recent books that discuss this?

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Experts have correctly predicted 20 of the last 3 market crashes.

I've been predicting a market crash since ~2010, and I'll admit that I've been wrong again and again. Being wrong has reinforced two things for me: the old adage that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, and that governments and other major interests will go to almost any lengths possible to keep distorted markets propped up.

> and that governments and other major interests will go to almost any lengths possible to keep distorted markets propped up.

This here is pretty key. Those on top will do just about anything to stay on top.

As such I try to make sure my own interests align with them. For example, most wealthy people keep very little of their wealth in cash. Meaning inflation doesn't hurt them, in fact in most cases it helps them. So I try to keep little of my money in cash.

Diversification of course is always the golden rule.

These complex, interconnected system are more resistant to collapse than the media and experts assume. The post-Covid economic and stock market boom exceeded even the the most optimistic of forecasts. Individuals who stayed invested made a killing, and the market keeps going up. It pays to be optimistic unless you're the media, in which doom and gloom means more clicks and ad revenue.

If I had to predict, there will be no collapse and the bull market and economic expansion will continue even in spite of all the things that are going wrong. At any point in history, there will always be things that are going wrong somewhere.

These experts tend to have a terrible track record at this sort of stuff, whether it's incorrect calls of a housing market crash, stock market crash, recession, hyperinflation, etc.

Michael Crichton wrote a great piece on this called "Why Speculate?"

https://americandigest.org/long-read-week-speculate-michael-...

Experts are so often wrong on their economic predictions that there's very little value in listening to them.

When you are an analyst the sensible thing to do is always predict doom and gloom. If you are correct you will be hailed as a genius. If you are wrong no one cares because the market is doing great! Over a decades long span there will eventually be a downturn and you can then say "I told you so".

I think this makes sense for, say, stock-price analysts, but if I were a scientist I doubt I'd be happy predicting this or being right.

I liked "Collapse of Complex Societies" by Joseph Tainter but I'm not well-read in the area: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477.Collapse_of_Complex_...

The analysts assume rationale behavior, but it should be noted that some factors such as money laundering distort the prices and Toronto real estate market has a massive floods of opaque cash used for money laundering (at least $28.4 billion invested in Greater Toronto Area housing since 2008 according to reports).

I've suggested two books you could take a look at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835835

They are oriented towards how we got here and solutions to get us out of it.

Thanks. Added some Piketty to my Audible queue.

And what are the best books on post collapse dynamics. Cause knowing a collapse in all details may not be the best path to bounce.

The danger here is that there may well be no bounce, depending on how hard the fall is. We built modern society on cheap energy that was available from a low technology base. Having used a large chunk of that cheap energy up, there may not be enough accessible to rebuild.

Everyone in the Toronto analysis ignores dual incomes. Yeah, the median income isn't that great. But for those who are in couples? Working backwords from after tax income, it is about 120K-140K a year median.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/mbf4...

When I've seen measures of median income it's usually median family income.

>Working backwords from after tax income, it is about 120K-140K a year median.

But your source says that the median family (aka household, so it factors in both earners) income for non-seniors is only $93k, and with kids it's only $105k? Where are you getting $120k-140k from? Households where both earners are high income professionals?

yep

That is the after tax income. I am converting it to the gross income that people usually use for comparing salaries.

Ah okay my bad, I missed the part about "Working backwords from after tax income".

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