Bill Clinton, were we forced to put money in real estate?

I think the answer should be yes and no.

Yes, if you find your hard-earned money devaluing everyday and you can't find any other way or easy way to preserve your capital except through investing or rather speculating in real estate.

No, if you are over-stretching your commitment. This is where the evil leveraging comes in. You want to make quick profits and enter into huge leveraging and highly risky debts! Everything is borrowed; if the price continues to go up everyday, there is simply nothing to worry about. But there is a limit to anything up! When the top is reached, it falls! Don't tell us that you are forced to borrow or to speculate in real estate.

I think Bill Clinton has a very good point. If the economy has opened more channels for investments for people to invest and preserve their hard-earned money, then our financial crisis should be much less severe today. But the sad story is that the devils in Wall Street can only offer speculations in real estate, stocks, and very risky financial products and no more!

Yes, I also agree with Bill Clinton that if America had made early developments of alternative energies such as solar and wind powers, we may have avoided creating the housing bubble, the fuel bubble and the toxic debts of Wall Street.

The situation is very similar to what happened to us in Hong Kong before the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. In the few years leading to the re-unification in mid-1997, almost all people in Hong Kong thought only about speculations in stocks and real estate. Many young and old were only interested in speculations to make easy profits. Work and careers that required devotion, diligence, skill, integrity and sacrifice were despised upon and if you were the very few adhering to such rules, you would be ridiculed. That was the evil and decadent culture of Hong Kong before the re-unification in 1997.

So who can say whether we were forced to put money in real estate? Our own greediness, laziness, stupidity and excesses contributed to the very narrow but unproductive investments in real estate and stocks, creating unimaginable asset bubbles and a completely degraded culture. Sadly, the same corrupted culture is still very much alive in Hong Kong.

Human follies are all the same throughout the world. What happened to Japan or Hong Kong many years ago are a backward reflection for America today. The major difference is that many Chinese in Hong Kong did not give up their homes when the property bubble exploded that time but it seems it is just too easy to see the Americans surrendering their houses and go to foreclosures!

Why are we only wise after the event? God knows!