Charles Hugh Smith – Those who say there are only two sure things in life, death and taxes, should add a third sure thing: realtors and stock market mavens will deny there’s a bubble even when it’s obvious to everyone the bubble has already reached insane levels of overvaluation.

And so here we are yet again, with housing and stocks both hitting price levels that make no sense in terms of traditional measures of value. And since these pesky metrics make it impossible to claim there’s no bubble, those benefiting from the bubble have to claim that this time it’s different: not only is the current bubble rational, there’s no reason it can’t keep expanding indefinitely.

In a zero-yield world, it’s perfectly reasonable for corporations to borrow trillions of dollars to pump up their own stocks with buy-backs. Profits may be sagging but thanks to the miracles of Cargo-Cult mumbo-jumbo such as margin expansion, profits don’t really matter that much. What counts is the central banks have our back: to guarantee a profit, just buy stocks now before the central banks push valuations even higher.

Housing may not be in bubble territory everywhere, but it’s reaching bubblicious heights wherever global hot money is pouring into the domestic economy: for example, the San Francisco Bay Area. Global hot money has two increasingly desperate goals:

1. find a positive, low-risk yield

2. shift the staggering gains reaped from corruption and central-bank financialization bubbles into hard assets such as Impressionist paintings, real estate, etc.

On a global scale, trillions of dollars are sloshing around, frantically seeking a low-risk yield or hard asset.By some estimates, $2 trillion has already fled China as corrupt officials and cronies are rushing their ill-gotten gains out of China before the hammer of social unrest comes down on their fortunes. Continue reading →