There is a difference. 1970s were a period of hyperinflation in US (due in part to Vietnam war & energy crisis). Compared to that, recent bubble is easy money driven speculation. After the coming bust, there may be another hyperinflation driven bubble as $ devalues and US assets become cheap for foreigners. Also, the rich will like to shelter their wealth in real estate.

The author of the article was Benjamin Stein. Anyone know if that was ‘the’ Ben Stein?

I wonder what Ben would say today if you showed him this article? That article was great and from an interesting guy. He hosted a game show “win Ben Stein’s Money” was in a bunch of movies most memorable line still used today while as a teacher calling roll “Bueller, Bueller,” wrote nixon’s speaches, was valedictorian at Yale Law. In 1981 he was a different guy, a younger guy and I am afraid today he has become one of the “there’s nothing to worry about guys.”

Here he is on Katie Couric telling us in March of 2007 reacting to the new century failure saying that this is just a subprime problem and this will all blow over and won’t affect the economy, “Bueller, Bueller”.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/18/sunday/main2581859.shtml

What happened Ben?

Yes it is.

http://www.benstein.com/bio.html

bsrsharma,

You said Also, the rich will like to shelter their wealth in real estate.
The very wealthy people that I know have gotten out of RE almost entirely, with the exception of properties they use personally, and even some of those have been dumped.
Some have fled to commercial RE and others have gone foreign. South America has some nice bargains, such as Uruguay, as well as some areas of Europe. Though that isn’t as good as it was due to the dollar’s fall–but if you bought over the last two years, the recent currency differential would actually have been in your favor. I guess the take-away is, there are always places to make money, if you have money, but I don’t think US RE will be that place for at least a decade.

-one muggle