The land market — and the credit created against it — drives the real estate cycle, which drives the economy, which ultimately drives both the stock market and the real estate market.
If you don’t understand the land market, you’re blind to the risks and opportunities taken while invest.
By viewing the economy through the lens of the 18-year real estate cycle, you have an advantage over every other investor.
At the very heart of the real estate cycle, chasing the unearned wealth — the economic rent of land — is the motivation behind most real estate investments (i.e., speculation).
The banks love this process.
They capture the economic rent through mortgage payments — trading the interest on a multi-trillion-dollar derivatives market.
It’s a parasitic system that means banks are now an enormous part of the economy.
Financiers quite simply carry a licence to mortgage the earth.
We are all, in effect, slaves to this system.
It’s very profitable for those who control it.