Crisis Counsel

Will the subprime lending meltdown and credit crunch send us into a financial free fall? We asked the sharpest minds in business to share their reactions to the downturn, and their insights on the road ahead.

Robert Shiller
This could be a major turning point.
Robert Shiller
Stanley B. Resor professor of economics, Yale University

We have been in a spectacular boom in both stock and housing, and there's a psychology associated with that. That boom psychology brought us lower lending standards and a lot of wishful thinking about how easy it is to make money, and both real estate and stocks have been at record highs. But now they seem to be heading downward. We've seen home-price drops in most major cities in the U.S. Futures markets for single-family homes based on our index are predicting home-price declines ranging from 3% to 8% for the next year. And of course we've already seen big stock drops.

It's possible that we are at a major turning point, but I'm not sure. So far, I don't see any major change in investor psychology. I've been doing questionnaire survey work on homebuyers and stocks, and the results there differ from the futures markets. Regarding real estate, for example, we found that, among homebuyers in Los Angeles a few years ago, the median expected price increase for the next ten years was about 10% annually. With our latest survey this year, it's down to 5%. So expectations for buyers have diminished, but people are still expecting home prices to go up 5% a year, which is pretty good. The question is, Where will expectations go from here? If people lose their optimism, as indeed some have, they won't have the same incentive to buy housing. That could lead to a substantial drop in home prices.

My more optimistic thought is that lower housing and stock prices wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It makes housing more affordable and provides better opportunities for younger investors. It's not any kind of big disaster. It might slow down the economy and put us in a recession, but we'll emerge from it, and many people will be better off.

Warren Buffett

Wilbur Ross

Henry M. Paulson

John Mack

Bill Miller

Robert Shiller

Jim Rogers

Jim Chanos

Stephen S. Roach

Amy Brinkley

Laura Tyson

Jeremy Grantham

Ben Stein
When Wall Street fails, it asks for a handout. Fortune's Allan Sloan says there must be a better way. (more)
But the Treasury Secretary tells Fortune Magazine's Nina Easton that the economy is strong enough to withstand the volatility. (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.