… is dead. Bankrupt.
Lehman Brothers, America’s fourth-largest brokerage, and one of the latest victims of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The current disaster is one of the biggest meltdowns in modern-day history because it has affected stock markets across the globe. In Canada, the TSX slid by more than four per cent, or 515 points. That represented the TSX’s second worst day of the year.
Garth Turner, in his published book “Greater Fool,” believes that the US real estate crash is about to sweep into Canada.
“When bungalows in Vancouver cost $900,000 and resale homes with no parking in midtown Toronto are $1 million, it’s only forty-year mortgages and an embracing of debt that sustain the unsustainable. The inevitable conclusion is that the current Canadian real estate market is floating on a sea of unrepayable, and perhaps unserviceable, debt.
