Literal Real Estate Crash
posted by Lawrence Cunningham
A Civil Engineering Quiz: Suppose you build a 12-story condominium using pilings designed to tolerate a degree of surface imbalance on its north and south side of about 2,000 tons. Then suppose you dig an underground garage on the building’s south side to 20 feet and pile the dirt on its north side to about 30 feet, yielding a surface imbalance of about 3,000 tons. What would happen?
See the accompanying photograph of a fallen condo in China, taken by Bill Hopen, featured in a story by Mish Shedlock. Hopen sees in the story and photograph a tragic metaphor for a coming economic crash in Chinese real estate, which he worries is likely, a year or two behind the similar convulsions the West began two years ago. If so, prospects for global economic recovery are dimmer than many suppose. Mish and Bill offer more photos and explain the concerns more fully at the foregoing two links. Worth a look.
Current Events Quiz: Will the effort that goes into determining the cause of the photographed building crash be proportional to that expended determining the cause of the economic crash imperiling the West, and predicted soon to imperil China? Is it difficult to understand why it is easier to see such excessive imbalances in physical than economic settings?
November 10, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (4)
James Grimmelmann - November 10, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Not to worry; the readers of There, I Fixed It managed to repair the building, better than new.
Lawrence Cunningham - November 10, 2009 at 8:29 pm
James,
Thanks for the altertness, which may actually add poingancy to the quiz!
LC
James Grimmelmann - November 10, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Sadly, many of the proposals for dealing with our financial system will be at about the level of photoshopping Batman and Robin onto it.
Dan Culley - November 14, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I’m kind of impressed at how it stayed intact after falling over…
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