skyscraper index

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-01/will-2016-be-end-current-skyscraper-boom

The completion of record-setting skyscrapers has long seemed to indicate the beginning of economic crises.
The Singer Building (September 1906) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Building (1907) began construction before the Panic of 1907 and were later completed in 1908 and 1909, respectively.
Construction began on 40 Wall Street (now the Trump Building), Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building all prior to the crash on Wall Street which began in the fall of 1929 only to have the record-setting buildings open in the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, 1930, and 1931, respectively.
Construction of the World Trade Center towers began in August 1968 and January 1969 and opened in December 1970 and January 1972, respectively. The economy was then in a bad recession and the Bretton Woods Crisis at hand. The Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) began construction in April of 1971 and opened in May of 1973 during the 1973–1974 stock market crash and the 1973 oil crisis.
Such alerts indicate looming danger in the economy of significance. However, the danger is not necessarily imminent. The next pivotal date is when the construction project reaches a point where it has broken the record. That date is difficult to estimate given the whims of construction. Media reports indicate that the Jeddah project will possibly be completed in 2020 without indicating whether that date is the record setting date, the completion date, or the opening ceremonies.
It is significant that the record being broken by the Jeddah Tower is the record set by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In some ways, the Burj Khalifa has become something of a symbol of the excesses of the last bubble.


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