TILMAN FERTITTA SEES AND SMELLS A NATIONWIDE REAL ESTATE CRASH, STARTING IN HOUSTON Landry’s CEO and purported Shiloh Club irregular Tilman Fertitta ladled out a deep bowl of bear stew from the teevee-front kitchen of his restaurant empire Wednesday, telling Bloomberg TV viewers that he smells a national real estate crash on the order of what happened in 1986, and volunteering that he “can see it in Houston right now.” He prefaced these comments to hosts Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle with a survey of the “crazy numbers” he is seeing in real estate valuations and transactions: “You are seeing it in New York probably more than anywhere else; but you are seeing it in Texas; you are seeing it in California. And . . . history always repeats itself as we always know, but I think it’s going to repeat a little sooner this time. You can just see it coming. There are so many cranes everywhere.” What’s the trigger? “If oil stays in the 70-something dollar range — where it is right now — you’re gonna see it in Houston first,” he said, adding that it might take an oil price of $50 a barrel to bring on a “total crash” like the one in the eighties that knocked Houston off its feet for a good decade. Fertitta continued his jeremiad with a few complaints about inflation, which he sees as “huge,” no matter what Ben Bernanke has to say to the contrary. [Bloomberg TV; previously on Swamplot]