Legendary Julian Robertson Predicts "Utter Global Collapse"

pippendagimp · Jul 22, 2005

Robertson is way out there with this interview and generally sounds like a kook. Let's hope he's just going senile. However, he has proven himself a genius for far too many decades to just simply write him off. As perhaps some other posters here might know (robbie380, Mr. Brightside, etc), Robertson has been on George Soros' level when it comes to speculating correctly. Thus, I reluctantly decided to post this eye-popping piece below:

June 22, 2005
Legendary Funds Manager Predicts Utter Global Collapse Stemming From Bursting of Property Bubble - Blames Bush-Cheney "regime"
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In a recent interview on CNBC with Ron Insana, one of the "old-timer" funds manager, Julian Robertson, predicted "utter global collapse" as a consequence of the bursting of the world-wide property bubble.

Often called "Never Been Wrong Robertson", the former head of Tiger Management (once the largest hedge fund in the world), is extremely worried about the speculative bubble in real estate.

Specifically, he is very worried about a world that is sustained by American consumer spending which is in turn 1/4 sustained by a property bubble. He predicts that 20 million people could lose their homes once the property bubble bursts.

Even more worrisome, he thinks central banks around the globe out of desperation will try to re-inflate the world economy with more liquidity that will create an inflationary spiral unseen in the economic history of mankind.

"Where does it end?", Insana asked Robertson. "Utter global collapse," he answered. But not just economic collapse ... collapse of epic proportions. Collapse and disintegration of all infrastructure, including government. Inflation will run into the double and triple digits. "Food production will fall. People will be carrying around U.S. dollars in wheelbarrows like Germany," he said.

There will be "total collapse of public infrastructure. Total collapse of medical care systems. All public pension plans, Social Security will collapse. All corporate pension plans will collapse."

"The American consumer is effectively now supporting the rest of the planet," he continued. "Consumption rates in all other nations are falling, have fallen to the point that the tax revenues to governments, that the business and industries those nation states are providing is now a net negative number relative to total debt service and public cost, that this exists in virtually every nation state on the planet now."

And for much of this "doom", interestingly, he blames the Bush-Cheney "regime".

"They have now consolidated power and money on the planet to the maximum extent possible. The planet's net liquidity, that is its, net free cash flow. Is now a negative number. The planet is not simply sinking into a sea of red ink; it is already sunk. The people just don't realize it yet," he said.

According to Robertson, "the Bush-Cheney regime is preparing the nation for transition from democracy into dictatorship because a dictatorship will be necessary to control, in 5 years time, food and water riots." He said "the federal government, that part of Patriot II Act, the internal exile, that the government is going to have to build now huge detention compounds on federal lands, probably in the West where the land is available, to potentially house 50 million or more citizens that will be in financial ruin."

In 10 years time, whoever is left will be effectively starting again, he said.

"More importantly, and I'm trying to think how we imply this or how we express this to the people, what extraordinary times we are living in and how the destruction of the planet has been engineered by the Bushonian Cabal from 1980 to 1992, and then from 2001 to present, which has effectively destroyed the economic liquidity of the planet," he said.

Robertson ended the interview by saying that he hopes he is not alive to see this.

"The lucky ones are the ones who are my age now," he said.

http://www.andongkim.com/articles/2005/06/JRobertsonglobalcollapse.htm

MartianMan · Jul 23, 2005

Sounds kooky. Hope he is wrong. I can see the US economy entering a depression and inflation occuring and Europe feeling the after-effects, but I can't see this "global collapse" he's talking about.

Invisible Fan · Jul 23, 2005

There was some discussion on the property bubble's influence upon the economy in this topic that mostly stemmed from the Economist's take on the issue. The Economist's bias can be seen as corporate friendly optimists who value the market over government interference....

For those interested in knowing what Mr. Robertson is talking about (minus the politics)
The global housing boom

In come the waves
Jun 16th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. Prepare for the economic pain when it pops

NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?

According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.

The global boom in house prices has been driven by two common factors: historically low interest rates have encouraged home buyers to borrow more money; and households have lost faith in equities after stockmarkets plunged, making property look attractive. Will prices now fall, or simply flatten off? And in either case, what will be the consequences for economies around the globe? The likely answers to all these questions are not comforting.

The increasing importance of house prices in the world economy prompted The Economist to start publishing a set of global house-price indices in 2002 (see article). These now cover 20 countries, using data from lending institutions, estate agents and national statistics. Our latest quarterly update shows that home prices continue to rise by 10% or more in half of the countries (see table). America has seen one of the biggest increases in house-price inflation over the past year, with the average price of homes jumping by 12.5% in the year to the first quarter. In California, Florida, Nevada. Hawaii, Maryland and Washington, DC, they soared by more than 20%.

In Europe, prices have long been at dizzy heights in Ireland and Spain, but over the past year have also spurted at rates of 9% or more in France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. Both France (15%) and Spain (15.5%) have faster house-price inflation than the United States.

....

Since 1997, home prices in most countries have risen by much more in real terms (ie, after adjusting for inflation) than during any previous boom. (The glaring exceptions are Germany and Japan, where prices have been falling.) American prices have risen by less than those in Britain, yet this is still by far the biggest boom in American history, with real gains more than three times bigger than in previous housing booms in the 1970s or the 1980s.

The most compelling evidence that home prices are over-valued in many countries is the diverging relationship between house prices and rents. The ratio of prices to rents is a sort of price/earnings ratio for the housing market. Just as the price of a share should equal the discounted present value of future dividends, so the price of a house should reflect the future benefits of ownership, either as rental income for an investor or the rent saved by an owner-occupier.

Calculations by The Economist show that house prices have hit record levels in relation to rents in America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium. This suggests that homes are even more over-valued than at previous peaks, from which prices typically fell in real terms. House prices are also at record levels in relation to incomes in these nine countries.

America's ratio of prices to rents is 35% above its average level during 1975-2000 (see chart 1). By the same gauge, property is “overvalued” by 50% or more in Britain, Australia and Spain. Rental yields have fallen to well below current mortgage rates, making it impossible for many landlords to make money.

To bring the ratio of prices to rents back to some sort of fair value, either rents must rise sharply or prices must fall. After many previous house-price booms most of the adjustment came through inflation pushing up rents and incomes, while home prices stayed broadly flat. But today, with inflation much lower, a similar process would take years. For example, if rents rise by an annual 2.5%, house prices would need to remain flat for 12 years to bring America's ratio of house prices to rents back to its long-term norm. Elsewhere it would take even longer. It seems more likely, then, that prices will fall.

A common objection to this analysis is that low interest rates make buying a home cheaper and so justify higher prices in relation to rents. But this argument is incorrectly based on nominal, not real, interest rates and so ignores the impact of inflation in eroding the real burden of mortgage debt. If real interest rates are permanently lower, this could indeed justify higher prices in relation to rents or income. For example, real rates in Ireland and Spain were reduced significantly by these countries' membership of Europe's single currency—though not by enough to explain all of the surge in house prices. But in America and Britain, real after-tax interest rates are not especially low by historical standards.

Betting the house

America's housing market heated up later than those in other countries, such as Britain and Australia, but it is now looking more and more similar. Even the Federal Reserve is at last starting to fret about what is happening. Prices are being driven by speculative demand. A study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that 23% of all American houses bought in 2004 were for investment, not owner-occupation. Another 13% were bought as second homes. Investors are prepared to buy houses they will rent out at a loss, just because they think prices will keep rising—the very definition of a financial bubble. “Flippers” buy and sell new properties even before they are built in the hope of a large gain. In Miami, as many as half of the original buyers resell new apartments in this way. Many properties change hands two or three times before somebody finally moves in.

New, riskier forms of mortgage finance also allow buyers to borrow more. According to the NAR, 42% of all first-time buyers and 25% of all buyers made no down-payment on their home purchase last year. Indeed, homebuyers can get 105% loans to cover buying costs. And, increasingly, little or no documentation of a borrower's assets, employment and income is required for a loan.

Interest-only mortgages are all the rage, along with so-called “negative amortisation loans” (the buyer pays less than the interest due and the unpaid principal and interest is added on to the loan). After an initial period, payments surge as principal repayment kicks in. In California, over 60% of all new mortgages this year are interest-only or negative-amortisation, up from 8% in 2002. The national figure is one-third. The new loans are essentially a gamble that prices will continue to rise rapidly, allowing the borrower to sell the home at a profit or refinance before any principal has to be repaid. Such loans are usually adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), which leave the borrower additionally exposed to higher interest rates. This year, ARMs have risen to 50% of all mortgages in those states with the biggest price rises.

The rapid house-price inflation of recent years is clearly unsustainable, yet most economists in most countries (even in Britain and Australia, where prices are already falling) still cling to the hope that house prices will flatten rather than collapse. It is true that, unlike share prices, house prices tend to be somewhat “sticky” downwards. People have to live somewhere and owners are loth to accept a capital loss. As long as they can afford their mortgage payments, they will stay put until conditions improve. The snag is that eventually some owners have to sell—because of relocation, or job loss—and they will be forced to accept lower prices.

Indeed, a drop in nominal prices is today more likely than after previous booms for three reasons: homes are more overvalued; inflation is much lower; and many more people have been buying houses as an investment. If house prices stop rising or start to fall, owner-occupiers will largely stay put, but over-exposed investors are more likely to sell, especially if rents do not cover their interest payments. House prices will not collapse overnight like stockmarkets—a slow puncture is more likely. But over the next five years, several countries are likely to experience price falls of 20% or more.

While America's housing market is still red hot, others—in Britain, Australia and the Netherlands—have already cooled (see chart 2). What lessons might they offer the United States?

The first is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it does not require a trigger, such as a big rise in interest rates or unemployment, for house prices to decline. British home prices started to fall in the summer of 2004 after the Bank of England raised rates by a modest one and a quarter percentage points. Since 2002, the Reserve Bank of Australia has raised rates by exactly the same amount and unemployment is at a 30-year low, yet home prices have fallen. The Federal Reserve's gradual increase in rates by two percentage-points over the past year has done little to scare away buyers, because most still have fixed-rate mortgages and long-term bond yields have remained unusually low. But as more Americans have been resorting to ARMs, so the housing market is becoming more vulnerable to rising rates.

Rung at the bottom

British and Australian prices have stalled mainly because first-time buyers have been priced out of the market and demand from buy-to-let investors has slumped. British first-timers now account for only 29% of buyers, down from 50% in 1999. And, according to the National Association of Estate Agents, buy-to-let purchases are running 50% lower than a year ago. As prices become more and more heady in America, the same will happen there.

British experience also undermines a popular argument in America that house prices must keeping rising because there is a limited supply of land and a growing number of households. As recently as a year ago, it was similarly argued that the supply of houses in Britain could not keep up with demand. But as the expectation of rising prices has faded, demand has slumped. According to RICS, the stock of houses for sale has increased by one-third over the past year. America has faster population growth than Britain, but its supply of housing has also been rising rapidly. Economists at Goldman Sachs point out that residential investment is at a 40-year high in America, yet the number of households is growing at its slowest pace for 40 years. This will create excess supply.

Another mantra of housing bulls in America is that national average house prices have never fallen for a full year since modern statistics began. Yet outside America, many countries have at some time experienced a drop in average house prices, such as Britain and Sweden in the early 1990s and Japan over the past decade. So why should America be immune? Alan Greenspan, chairman of America's Federal Reserve, accepts that there are some local bubbles, but dismisses the idea of a national housing bubble that could harm the whole economy if it bursts. America has in the past seen sharp regional price declines, for example in Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco in the early 1990s. This time, with prices looking overvalued in more states than ever in the past, average American prices may well fall for the first time since the Great Depression.

But even if prices in America do dip, insist the optimists, they will quickly resume their rising trend, because real house prices always rise strongly in the long term. Robert Shiller, a Yale economist, who has just updated his book “Irrational Exuberance” (first published on the eve of the stockmarket collapse in 2000), disagrees. He estimates that house prices in America rose by an annual average of only 0.4% in real terms between 1890 and 2004. And if the current boom is stripped out of the figures, along with the period after the second world war when the government offered subsidies for returning soldiers, artificially inflating prices, real house prices have been flat or falling most of the time. Another sobering warning is that after British house prices fell in the early 1990s, it took at least a decade before they returned to their previous peak, after adjusting for inflation.

Another worrying lesson from abroad for America is that even a mere levelling-off of house prices can trigger a sharp slowdown in consumer spending. Take the Netherlands. In the late 1990s, the booming Dutch economy was heralded as a model of success. At the time, both house prices and household credit were rising at double-digit rates. The rate of Dutch house-price inflation then slowed from 20% in 2000 to nearly zero by 2003. This appeared to be the perfect soft landing: prices did not drop. Yet consumer spending declined in 2003, pushing the economy into recession, from which it has still not recovered. When house prices had been rising, borrowing against capital gains on homes to finance other spending had surged. Although house prices did not fall, this housing-equity withdrawal plunged after 2001, removing a powerful stimulus to spending.

Housing-equity withdrawal has also fallen sharply over the past year in Britain and Australia, denting household spending. In Australia, the 12-month rate of growth in retail sales has slowed from 8% to only 1.8% over the past year; GDP growth has halved to 1.9%. In Britain, too, a cooling of the housing market has been accompanied by an abrupt slowdown in consumer spending. If, as seems likely, home prices continue to fall in both countries, spending will be further squeezed.

Even a modest weakening of house prices in America would hurt consumer spending, because homeowners have been cashing out their capital gains at a record pace. Goldman Sachs estimates that total housing-equity withdrawal rose to 7.4% of personal disposable income in 2004. If prices stop rising, this “income” from capital gains will vanish.

And after the gold rush?

The housing market has played such a big role in propping up America's economy that a sharp slowdown in house prices is likely to have severe consequences. Over the past four years, consumer spending and residential construction have together accounted for 90% of the total growth in GDP. And over two-fifths of all private-sector jobs created since 2001 have been in housing-related sectors, such as construction, real estate and mortgage broking.

One of the best international studies of how house-price busts can hurt economies has been done by the International Monetary Fund. Analysing house prices in 14 countries during 1970-2001, it identified 20 examples of “busts”, when real prices fell by almost 30% on average (the fall in nominal prices was smaller). All but one of those housing busts led to a recession, with GDP after three years falling to an average of 8% below its previous growth trend. America was the only country to avoid a boom and bust during that period. This time it looks likely to join the club.

Japan provides a nasty warning of what can happen when boom turns to bust. Japanese property prices have dropped for 14 years in a row, by 40% from their peak in 1991. Yet the rise in prices in Japan during the decade before 1991 was less than the increase over the past ten years in most of the countries that have experienced housing booms (see chart 3). And it is surely no coincidence that Japan and Germany, the two countries where house prices have fallen for most of the past decade, have had the weakest growth in consumer spending of all developed economies over that period. Americans who believe that house prices can only go up and pose no risk to their economy would be well advised to look overseas.

Images and articles Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
Click to expand...

deepblue · Jul 23, 2005

And what the hell is he talking about Bush is to blame for the real estate bubble, the bubble was pretty much in motion during last couple years of Clinton's term. I don't think any president can cause the real state to go up like this. Grandpa Al might have more power then the president.

Although I do agree there is a world wide property bubble, the banks are not helping by lending people way too much money they can't pay back (Interest Only, 40 year ARMs), **** is going to hit the fan, and it won't be pretty when it does.

El_Conquistador · Jul 25, 2005

That's hilarious. Julian Robertson predicting the collapse of the world's economy.

Question for you, Julian, will the global economy's collapse in any way resemble the collapse of your own family of hedge funds, Tiger Management? What a joke.

Sour grapes from a manager of a hedge fund that went belly-up.

rrj_gamz · Jul 25, 2005

deepblue said:

And what the hell is he talking about Bush is to blame for the real estate bubble, the bubble was pretty much in motion during last couple years of Clinton's term. I don't think any president can cause the real state to go up like this. Grandpa Al might have more power then the president.

Although I do agree there is a world wide property bubble, the banks are not helping by lending people way too much money they can't pay back (Interest Only, 40 year ARMs), **** is going to hit the fan, and it won't be pretty when it does.
Click to expand...

I agree...It's all over, not only in the states...Just driving around Dallas, I'm thinking, how do people afford these huge homes...Traveling to Miami,the same thing...incredible...All I can say is don't get an interest only loan/an ARM...live beneath your means...

robbie380 · Jul 25, 2005

just because the guy is a good speculator doesn't mean he is a good prognosticator of what will occur in society.

pippendagimp · Jul 25, 2005

deepblue said:

And what the hell is he talking about Bush is to blame for the real estate bubble, the bubble was pretty much in motion during last couple years of Clinton's term. I don't think any president can cause the real state to go up like this. Grandpa Al might have more power then the president.
Click to expand...

I think he's blaming Bush/Greenie for adding a tsunami of fuel to the fire with the 12 consecutive rate cuts that brought short-rates down to 46yr lows and then the creation of trillions in treasury debt that served to flood the money supply. Both of these clearly fueled consumption and helped accelerate housing price inflation.

I assume Robertson thinks that Bush/Greenie should have just let the economy run its cycle and head into recession back in 2001, instead of re-flating. That's a fair enough argument to understand. Of course the central banks in other countries such as Australia and UK have re-flated in a similar fashion this decade. So I don't get how Bush gets blamed for their bubbles. Funny thing is that Robertson is a registered Republican!

Regarding Presidential vs. Fed influence on monetary policy, I think the Fed typically goes ahead with whatever the current administration in power wants.

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