My Home About Me

"Financial writers" often say really stupid things when they try to talk economics, adding a patina of academic authority to their arbitrary opinions. Here's Daniel Gross in Slate, supporting his claim that California's Orange County is ground-zero of the subprime market collapse, what he calls "the nation's capital of real estate folly":

It's not entirely surprising that Irvine is a center of reckless real estate lending and borrowing. It's a classic industry cluster of the type seen in areas that lack natural resources.

Oh, I get it. OC has a troubled real estate market because they don't mine enough nickel there. But even in its own loony terms, Gross's analysis doesn't comport with the facts. OC is endowed with rich soil ideal for farming. Gross himself admits earlier in the same column that it all began as an "agricultural tract." This isn't the first time that Gross has just made stuff up.

S&P 500 chart pattern   Technical chart patterns   support/resistance levels   ETFs (exchange traded funds)   Deron Wagner   euro   selling options   currencies   Forex   charts   profit   Solar energy ETF (TAN)   International ETF   Trading success   Developing mental edge   Trading focus   Fixed-income (bond) ETFs   Strongest ETFs   option   income