Business

Over a decade ago, the U.S. residential housing market was revealed to be perhaps the biggest ponzi scheme ever created as easy financing enabled people to buy/build countless investment properties, that they were in no way adequately capitalized to own, with no money down all based on the premise that the house could be 'flipped' before the first mortgage payment even came due.  It was a classic ponzi that worked great for a while but inevitably turned south when home prices suddenly soured and their was no cash equity backing the trillions of dollars in outstanding mortgage debt.

After a barrage of media trial balloons (as recently as today) meant to temper the enthusiasm of Euro bulls now that the EURUSD is back to 1.20 and threatening European corporate profitability, Mario Draghi's Sintra hawkishness is a distant memory.

Earlier today, we reported that Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan called for an end to Europe’s cheap-money policies and asked that the European Central Bank not use the strengthening euro as an excuse to keep printing money...

According to Bloomberg, Cryan said that the bank is “seeing signs of bubbles” across capital markets while low interest pummel European banks’ earnings.

US Equity futures just opened and tumbled in what seems like a delayed reaction to the Cohn news...

Nasdaq, Dow, and S&P Futs all opened lower...

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As we detailed earlier, just hours after Fed Vice Chair Fischer resigned, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein threw his support behind Gary Cohn...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggests that you spend no more than 30% of your annual budget on housing costs as it could put you and your family at greater risk of being unable to afford other necessities.  That said, Americans are overachievers.

Per the following chart from howmuch.net, the average American family spends roughly $57,000 per year and have thrown caution to the wind with housing costs eating up nearly 33% of annual budgets.  In all, some 40 million houses (or about 1/3) are occupied by people who can't afford them.