[quote=The-Shoveler]You would have had to be there but it was REALLY BAD.

Japan was eating the world like godzilla!![/quote]

I told you that I remember that. Maybe where you were you felt it when they came over and bought everything up and jacked up property values. Personally I felt it growing up outside Detroit as it was hitting the bottom lines of the big 4 auto firms and union workers were leaving places like Detroit and Flint in droves. This being said, now it’s not just Japan but the rest of the world. When I bought my house, I had to compete against cash buyers from Korea, China, South America, Mexico and Canada. This was on top of other upper middle class Americans, and probably some private equity. When I applied for school, I had to compete against others from England, Spain, Korea, Japan, and China and this was in the 90’s. I can only imagine what it would take to get into a Yale, Harvard or even a Berkley now, but I bet it is many times harder than the 70’s/80’s.