Wednesday, October 17, 2007

IMF Offers Encouraging Words

WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK - October 2007

How many times does the report mention safety?

7 times!

How many times does the report mention turbulent/turbulence?

60 times!

How many times does the report mention housing?

80 times!

How many times does the report mention imbalance?

81 times!

How many times does the report mention risk?

265 times!

Well, as long as the media doesn't panic when they read it we should all get through this with nothing more than a flesh wound. Let's all cross our fingers.

Britain facing massive house price crash, warns IMF
The IMF added: "The extent of house price over-valuation may be considerably larger in some national markets in Europe than in the US, and there would clearly be a sizeable impact on the housing markets in the event of a widespread credit crunch."

D'oh!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many times did a form of the word "prudent" appear?

16 times

Stagflationary Mark said...

That's the spirit! :)

How about drag?

"considerable drag" - 2
"substantial drag" - 2
"significant drag" - 2
"major drag" - 1
"a drag" - 1

That last one is rather weak by comparison, lol.

Slowdown? 41 times!

Or how about Spain? 33 times!

One particular area of downside risk relates to the housing market in western Europe. Housing markets have boomed in a number of fast-growing economies, most notably Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with rapid price rises and sharp increases in residential investment relative to GDP exceeding even those observed during the U.S. housing boom (see Box 2.1 in Chapter 2).

It sounds so ominous when taken in context.