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It's the spookiest Nightcap yet. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

👻 HAUNTED

There are plenty of scary headlines vying for our attention right now. The supply chain? Terrifying. Energy shortages, China's mountain of corporate debt, relentless inflation? Wes Craven could never. 

 

The last thing we need is a zombie from the early aughts to come back to haunt us … *Touches earpiece* What's that, Chris Isidore?

 

All right folks, I'm being told we've got a zombie from the early aughts that's come back to haunt us.  

 

Here's the deal: Economists and investors don't seem worried about the housing market, which is on fire right now thanks to historically low interest rates, high demand and tight inventory.  

 

But the bad news is that practically no one was worried about the housing bubble in 2007, either. And in case anyone forgot, that one was a doozy. When prices crashed in 2007, it set off a cascade of economic and financial disasters that resulted in prolonged unemployment and the greatest destruction of household wealth in the nation's history. 

 

Back then, the consensus view from investors and economists, including Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve at the time, was that home values would keep rising forever. The proliferation of shady lending practices wasn't keeping folks up at night, because borrowers who couldn't afford their payments would be able to sell their homes for more than they paid for them.  

 

But, like every secondary character who's ever gone to investigate a suspicious noise out back, it didn't end well. In early 2007, home prices began to fall, losing 26% of their value before bottoming out. 

 

Good thing we Americans always learn our lessons so as not to repeat our mistakes…Oh wait.  

 

Housing prices now are rising faster now than they were in the 2000s bubble. The previous record for rising home prices was a 14.4% year-over-year gain in the fall of 2005. We blew past that peak in April this year, with a new record set every month since. Year-over-year prices increases now stand at 19.9%. And still, many economists forecast even more price increases ahead, albeit it at a slower rate.  

 

Feeling déjà vu yet? Here's a morsel of optimism:  

 

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said he is worried that the housing market is in for a hard landing, but not a catastrophic one.  

 

"The housing market is out of whack. It's not sustainable. It is overvalued, stretched and vulnerable as [mortgage] rates rise, and affordability gets crushed," he said. "But I'm not concerned we we're going to have a crash." 

 

Why? Banks did strengthen underwriting standards on home loans after the market crashed, so that should help. Plus, we don't have the excess inventory and high vacancy rates that accompanied the 07 crash.  

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All those zeroes are not a joke — sixty-million percent. That's how much shiba inu coin, a cryptocurrency that was created as a parody of dogecoin (itself a joke, because crypto is basically the Wild West and you can do whatever you want), has risen over the past year. One shiba coin is still a small fraction of one cent, or $0.00007 on Wednesday afternoon.

 

RELATED: Just last week, bitcoin hit an all-time high of nearly $67,000. It's fallen some 12% since then.

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WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

💰 Costco raised its starting wage for hourly store workers to $17.

 

📝 Facebook acknowledged to shareholders that it is facing government investigations related to the tens of thousands of pages of internal company documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen.

 

🚭 Cigarette sales in America rose for the first time in two decades during the pandemic, a new report from the Federal Trade Commission says.

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🐦 TWEET OF THE DAY

Can't blame him, honestly