Edward E. Leamer

Well, you called your paper... your article, Whimsy and Fragility in the China Shark Narrative, which is a whimsical title.

But you're making a reference to Ed Leamer, who passed away recently.

He was a guest on the program many times.

He's one of my favorite economists.

And so we only see the results that look dramatic and large.

And if you've ignored all the other ones, you're not going to get very far.

Would you expand on what you said a minute ago about storytelling and Ed Leamer and economic history? Because economic historians over the last 50 years have turned to statistics with great excitement because it's prestigious and it looks scientific.

Whether it is or not doesn't matter.

Guys, there is a professor out of UCLA.

His name is Ed Leamer.

And in 2007, he wrote a beautiful white paper.

I urge you to read it, but you don't have to.

uh what he looks at specifically is housing starts so housing starts peak before every single recession since 1970. elementary terms of housing start new construction when they're building new homes so usually one to three years ahead of time and it turns right before a recovery Right.

I checked it against 55 years worth of data and it holds.

So where is Ed Leamer? And if you use his kind of methodology, where are we today? The housing market is blinking red.

And that's logical because the housing market has been in brutal, brutal territory for the last couple of years.