Housing History And Why The Yield Curve Got So Flat

Originally published September 26, 2018
The global economy was in very rough shape in 1980. Caught in the spiral of the Great Inflation, there was practically nowhere to hide from ripping upheaval - beyond just the economic problems. Despite trying seemingly everything for an entire decade, nothing Economists came up with would rebalance the system.
They kept saying they only needed time for their schemes to work. By the summer of '80, no one outside the ideology was left to believe them. Even Congress in rare bipartisan fashion denounced "demand side" Economics for leading the country into chaos.
The US economy finally broke. After sustained waves of inflation combined with higher and higher unemployment (just Milton Friedman has predicted more than a decade before), in January 1980 the nation fell into official recession. It was only the beginning. Though that particular contraction was short, lasting only seven months "officially," according to the NBER, it was severe on its own and merely the first of two in close succession.
In August 1980, the month of recovery, which only meant the bottom of that recession, interest rates were obscene. The 10-year US Treasury had ended 1979 yielding around 10%. By February 1980, it was nearly 13%. Now that was a Bond Rout!
Mortgage rates, of course, followed. In December 1979, the average 30-year fixed loan cost a little less than 13% interest. In April 1980, it was as high as 16.5%.
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