You've Seen Housing Starts This Bad Before -- If You're Ninety Years Old

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You've Seen Housing Starts This Bad Before -- If You're Ninety Years Old
Many know about home prices, few know about housing starts

By Robert Folsom
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:45:00 ET

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Lots of people know that U.S. home prices have plummeted down to 2003 levels (or lower). Unfortunately, not many know about the far more extreme decline in housing starts -- an equally tangible activity that arguably has more to say about U.S. economic health.

Unlike home prices, housing starts today are nowhere close to where they were in 2003 -- in fact they've fallen to levels that are far below anything in living memory...

...That is, unless you're 90 years old.

That's right. Housing starts today have declined to the same number as 1922, even though the U.S. has three times the population.

And as you can discover in the "Housing Starts" chart in Bob Prechter's new Elliott Wave Theorist, today's levels are actually not far from where the number stood at the turn of the 19th century.

How can this be? Well, this first Theorist of 2012 fully answers both the how and why behind the mind-blowing chart. The issue's first five pages alone present ten charts, which combine to paint a comprehensive picture of where the economy really stands -- as always, it's unlike anything you've seen until now.

Mind you, Prechter's data is not some compilation of obscure or unknown statistics; his analysis surveys the standard economic measures you hear about all the time -- such as GDP, spending outlays, and manufacturing jobs.

The difference here is that Prechter examines mostly long-term data, which is why he's able in turn to reveal the very long-term economic story. Most conventional economists only scrutinize marginal changes in monthly data. It doesn't even occur to them to study a 100-year chart, much less glean the trends that emerge from many such charts.

Yet this is exactly what Bob Prechter has published in the January Theorist, and why the issue is titled:

Century-Long Trends Are Rolling Over

How does today's economy really compare to the 1970s -- and to the 1930s? The answer is in the Theorist.

When did "The Big-Government Era" begin in the U.S., and what can we say about where that era is taking the economy? The answer is in the Theorist.

Is hyperinflation really the only likely outcome of the Federal Reserve policy to "print, print, print" its way out of the worsening economic crisis? You know where to read and see the answer.

See what you can't afford not to see in the January Elliott Wave Theorist.

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Tags: Bob Prechter, Elliott Wave Theorist, home sales, housing prices

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