Real Estate: The Bubble, The Bust and Beyond
continued from page 63
prices since 1830 and posts new housing
data without a two-month lag found with
other popular real estate indexes. Since
1960, when the WIREI crossed above
its 20-month moving average, there was
strong evidence that the bear market was
reaching its end.
Similar to stock market volume, the
number of new houses sold and the number of months they were on the market
measure overall housing activity. Generally speaking, continuous increases in sales
volume along with a dramatic decline in
the amount of time it takes to sell a house
precede any improvement in real estate
prices. Over the last 60 years, housing bear
markets ended when “Months for Sale”
dropped below 3.5 months.
Unfortunately, the WIREI is still in a
downtrend, nationwide sales activity is still
weak and the average months to sell a new
home is nine. It could easily take another
year to dry up excess housing inventory
and for mortgage credit to ease enough to
stimulate new home purchases.
Kenneth G. Winans (www.kenwinans.
com) is a successful investment management entrepreneur and an awardwinning author in finance and history.
For 29 years, he has conducted landmark
investment research and designed leading
market indices in stocks and real estate.
He is a regular guest on TV and radio
shows nationwide and has had much of
his work published as headline articles by
leading websites, magazines and newspapers. He has been a trustee of the Museum
of American Finance since 2009.
Money as Industrial Waste
continued from page 66
production through the use of technology
and craftsmanship. In addition to creating the partlying process, the BEP also
invented a way to reuse currency paper
and, thereby, reduce new currency production in the early 20th century. Through
its laundering process, the BEP was able to
significantly reduce the amount of paper
going into its macerator to be turned into
pulp. Finally, the BEP has continually tried
to find ways to recycle currency paper into
a marketable product that could be used
again. For many years, this was in the form
of pulp. Yet, after the market for pulp collapsed, it took almost four decades for pulp
to be replaced by shreds. So, for the BEP,
we could replace “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”
with “Partly, Launder, Macerate/Shred.”
Though not as catchy, this phrase reflects
a century of efforts by the BEP in recycling
currency paper.
Dr. Franklin Noll is president of Noll Historical Consulting, LLC, and historical
consultant to the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, running its history program and
conducting research on the history of the
BEP, US currency, Treasury securities and
the public debt.
Notes
1. “How Money is Made,” Scientific American,
7 December 1872, 358.
2. “How Millions of Dollars are Destroyed
Daily,” The Washington Post, 22 November
1908; Bertram M. Cohen, “Make Mine Macer-
ated,” Paper Money, 30, 5 (Sept/Oct 1991): 154.
Report of the Director, 1911 (Washington,
DC, 1912), 8.
3. Mary Clemmer Ames, Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital (Hartford, CT: A.D. Worthington & Co.,
Publishers, 1876), 337.
15. History of the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, 1862–1962 (Washington, DC,
1962), 78.
4. Rodney Dutcher, “Daily Washington Letter,” 5 July 1929. HRC newspaper clipping
collection.
16. Ibid.; Senate, Washed Money: The Counterfeiters’ Delight, 62nd Cong., 3rd sess., 1913,
S. Doc. 1020, 6.
5. “The Government’s Method of Destroying
Counterfeits,” The Washington Times, 21
December 1902, 6; Franklin P. Smith, “How
Uncle Sam Makes His Paper-Money,”
Harper’s Weekly, 15 February 1890.
17. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
Report of the Director, 1907 (Washington,
DC, 1908), 20.
6. Dutcher.
18. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
Report of the Director, 1926 (Washington,
DC, 1927), 15–16.
7. Harold W. George, “The History of a Dollar
Bill,” A Weekly Newsmagazine, March 1892,
681.
19. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
Report of the Director, 1919 (Washington,
DC, 1920), 21; ibid., 1929, 3; ibid., 1931, 4.
8. Cohen, 154.
20. Ibid., 1931, 9.
9. Smith.
21. Ibid., 1934, 11.
10. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
Report of the Director, 1886 (Washington,
DC, 1887), 15–16.
22. Ibid., 1935, 10; ibid., 1936, 12; ibid., 1937, 45;
ibid., 1938, 15.
11. Colleen Hennessey, “Macerated Currency:
From Greenback to Novelty,” BEP Communicator, December 2008, 8–9.
24. James Delay, “The Money Destroyers,” Life,
2 February 1962.
12. “Stop Making Souvenirs of Macerated Currency,” The Washington Times, 29 March
1904, 12; Rand McNally Washington Guide
(New York: Rand McNally & Co., 1916),
191.
13. “Clean Currency, and How to Get It,” The
New York Times, 13 April 1902.
14. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
23. Ibid., 1940, 10.
25. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Annual
Report of the Director, 1943 (