support for the housing market is the stated number one target for the government in their attempts to save the economy. literal trillions of dollars have been thrown at preserving the housing bubble. and there have been no shortage of recent crowing about how the housing market has stabilized.

wrong. fail. massive fail.

U.S. Economy: New-Home Sales Unexpectedly Fall to Record Low

By Bob Willis

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in January to the lowest level on record, a sign that an extension of a government tax credit may not be enough to rekindle demand.

Purchases declined 11 percent to an annual pace of 309,000, below the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median sales price dropped 2.4 percent from January 2009 and the supply of unsold homes increased.

there is no recovery. we remain in a depression. i am trying to hold back from daily posting of evidence of this truth. least you think i am cherry picking data to sell my book, peep this long term representation, and judge for yourself (from calculated risk, mish. NSA = non-seasonally adjusted:




using trillions of dollars of borrowed money to try to prevent housing prices from falling was unfair (favoring those who hold mortgages over those who would buy houses at the lower prices), and doomed to fail. not only was this loudly predicted, it is obvious to anyone with a cursory understanding of simple arithmetic, or of the history of government failed attempts to control markets. and we are stuck with the debt, and with the unintended (but also predictable) consequences.

do not believe the garbage our leaders and our media is shoveling. unemployment and housing prices/supply are simple, clear tells. the second great depression is underway.

don't believe me. here is someone who knows much better than me. cause he's not only a client; he owns the whole thing!

Greenspan Says Crisis ‘By Far’ Worst, Recovery Uneven (Update1)

By Joshua Zumbrun

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the financial crisis was “by far” the worst in history and called the recovery from the global recession “extremely unbalanced.”

The world economy has undergone “by far the greatest financial crisis globally ever,” Greenspan said today in a speech to the Credit Union National Association’s Governmental Affairs Conference in Washington.

Greenspan said that while the economy was in worse shape in the Great Depression, the recent financial crisis was potentially more harmful than that in the 1930s because “never had short-term credit literally withdrawn.”

Greenspan said that the gross domestic product may recover to the level of previous peaks earlier this year, even though traditional drivers of growth such as housing starts and motor vehicles were “dead in the water.” He also said small businesses show few signs of improving because lenders are struggling with commercial real estate mortgages.

The “extremely unbalanced recovery” is being led by high- income consumers and large businesses that are benefiting from a recovery in stock prices, he said

monday--what is the democratic peoples' republic of korea? sunan airport, who knew?

tuesday--what is 'democracy'

wednesday--what is gloucester, ma?

thursday--what is not france, but the good ol us of a?

friday--who is charlie chaplin?

a friend emailed me an article about the financial failure of this hospital. being reported as if it was news. it prompted this reply from me:

the closure of st. vincent's is, according to two insiders i've spoken to this week, a done deal. they are losing $3-5 million a month; that is after millions of state and federal subsidies as well as medicare and medicaid payments.

even patients with medicare/medicaid create significant dollar losses. the salaries of the people delivering care to those patients is not met by the payments from medicare/medicaid. and they have a huge percentage of patients with no insurance whatsoever.

otoh, society has come to expect free, readily available hospital care as a right. and if the halls aren't brightly lit or clean enough, those with insurance will just go uptown to another hospital, expecting the local hospital to meet the needs of their neighbors w/o insurance.

complete clusterfuck of an economic/payment structure in this industry sector. and the so-called health care reform from this president not only ignores the flawed structure, but first and foremost preserves the place of those who benefit the most from the flawed structure (pharmaceuticals and insurance companies).

and as the system cracks and pieces fail, people immediately fall back on sentimental notions from a nostalgic past that never existed, or was never sustainable.

such sentiment will not slow the cracks and the failures.

the catholic diocese of new york is nearly out of the acute patient care business in new york city. the last two hospitals they closed, st. joseph's and mary immaculata, both in queens, they just walked away from. shut the doors, auctioned off the equipment and the buildings. (i bought some of the equipment). eight hospitals down to zero, in the space of eleven years. the church at least recouped some cash on the real estate value (and will on that greenwich village property that won't be transferred to continuum).

in past times, the state of new york would throw tens of millions of tax dollars at this financial train wreck, to feed public outcry based on sentiment and entitlement expectations of free, unrationed health care. but today, the state is broke (and is blessed to have a governor who refuses to deny that harsh reality, even though no one will listen to him). and there is no money to throw down the drain. nor is there any tolerance for higher taxes (also blessedly).

the people and the political leaders are too child-like to rationally face the realities of the failed health care structure. the realities will assert themselves nonetheless. delayed, but not denied.