Pavlov's Dog and Jim Cramer's Call of the Bottom in Housing (June 18, 2009) Like Pavlov's dog, Jim Cramer announces "the bottom is in" every time he sees a housing chart. Sadly, this is a conditioned response, not reality. In Pavlov's famous experiment, a dog hearing a ringing bell began drooling as if food was present. In a bizarre parallel to the classic experiment, Jim Cramer announces "the bottom is in" every time he sees a housing chart. Pavlov began his experiment by showing his dog a bowl of food (powdered meat). The dog naturally salivated, what Pavlov termed an unconditioned response. Then Pavlov rang a bell when food was presented; the bell was a neutral stimulus. Finally, he rang the bell without any food present; the dog began salivating. This salivation is called a conditioned response, and the process is called classical conditioning. Sadly, we can observe this behavior now in Jim Cramer, who nonsensically called a bottom as housing starts leaped. Here's Jim's call, dated 6/16/09: Cramer: Housing Has Officially Bottomed:
According to the Commerce Department, there were 47,000 more housing starts in May than the 485,000 expected, a number 17% higher than the month before. The two regions seemingly in the biggest hole, the South and West, jumped about 17% and 29%, respectively. Building permits, which can predict the market’s future to a certain extent, showed significant growth as well. Now Cramer – and probably the homebuilders, too – sense an end the morass that weighed so heavily on the markets. Here's how the conditioned response process works:
Since Jim saw viewer statistics jumped every time he called a bottom in housing, now he can't help it: every time he sees a housing chart now, he calls a bottom in housing:
Uh, Jim, we hate to tell you, but building more housing when there's a huge inventory of unsold houses and condos as interest rates are leaping up is not exactly bullish. (Psychotic disassociation from reality would be the official diagnosis.) We know this chart is just going to trigger more of your copious bottom-calling, but look at this and tell us what's so bullish:
This recent "improvement" in sales is a tiny blip up within a massive collapse. To call a bottom based on such a modest increase is truly psychotic disassociation; statistically, both the increase in sales and housing starts are minor enough to qualify as statistical irrelevancies, a.k.a. "noise." Then there's the little matter of rising mortgage rates. Sales are announced when they're signed, not when they close, so oops, a whole passel of buyers might get bumped or simply bail when they calculate what the half-point rise in rates will do to their monthly nut. So in other words, the glowing sales numbers are highly likely to be revised downward once actual escrow closings are tabulated. Then there's the little matter of unprecedented levels of debt in the U.S.:
The peak of mortgage resets lies ahead, too, which doesn't bode well for the fantasy the sales will chew through all existing inventory; if history is any guide, inventories will rise even further as resets cull many of the remaining homeowners who still have jobs, never mind those who have yet to lose their incomes, further swamping whatever dwindling sales actually close:
In conclusion: a conditioned response is not a substitute for reality. Just
because the dog started drooling, Jim, didn't mean there was any food to chow down.
And in a parallel fashion, just because you announce a bottom in housing doesn't mean
there is any substance to your call.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century James Howard Kunstler Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front Sharon Astyk The Future of Life E.O. Wilson Globalization and Its Discontents Joseph Stiglitz On Peak Oil:
Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak
Our Stolen Future: How We Are Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival
Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Jared Diamond) The Collapse of Complex Societies A realistic appraisal of alternative energy: Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air
Our previous lists of hot reading and viewing can be found at
Books and Films.
Of Two Minds reader forum (hosted offsite, reader moderated)
"This guy is THE leading visionary on reality.
He routinely discusses things which no one else has talked about, yet,
turn out to be quite relevant months later."
NOTE: contributions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.
Thank you, Ryan R. ($20), for your superblygenerous contribution to this
site.
I am greatly honored by your support and readership.
Your readership is greatly appreciated with or without a donation.
For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit
my weblog.
All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images copyright © 2009 Charles Hugh Smith, All rights reserved in all media, unless otherwise credited or noted. I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use. |
|
consulting | blog fiction/novels articles my hidden history books/films what's for dinner | home email me | ||