They Don't Know Up From Down

NEW YORK - Home prices rise for the third straight month, signaling a housing recovery is taking hold. (El Lay Times)

"This is good news for homeowners underwater due to the Bush economy,"  said Congressman Barney Frank. 

Obama administration official Angela Marks agreed.  "Higher home prices are key to keeping people in their homes despite the irresponsible decisions they have made." 

Borrowing against the increasing value of ones home is seen by the US government as key to restoring consumer spending to it's rampant pre-recession levels.

Congress Tries to make home ownership more affordable

Congress has also announced the continuation of it's blue ribbon program to lower home prices, making home ownership available to the poor and unemployed. 

"This will be a real economic boon to the economy, and it is the socially responsible thing to do," said Princeton economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman. "To each according to his need, from each according to his means"

 Economically ignorant people should keep their hands off of the economy...

El Lay Times

Thomas Sowell, from his latest article:

The same politicians who have been talking about a need for "affordable housing" for years are now suddenly alarmed that home prices are falling. How can housing become more affordable unless prices fall?

Affordable housing produced by market forces provides no benefit to politicians and has no attraction for them.

Blowing Bubbles

House prices have fallen to where the experts told us they should be back during the bubble. So why is this all of a sudden bad news now?

Bloomberg reports...

The Commerce Department reported today that new- home sales fell 2.9 percent last month to a 17-year low. The median sales price declined 11.5 percent from a year earlier.

Sliding property values mean more Americans will be under water on their mortgages, likely leading to a further increase in already record foreclosure rates.

I don't understand people who decide to abandon their house because it's suddenly worth less. Where do they go, back to renting? And how will they get a mortgage when they decide to buy back into market (after prices have risen). American economic literacy is dismal.

Not to worry, plenty of citizen-moochers, taking a cue from beggar-bankers and Wall Street welfare queens, are proposing solutions:

Ara Hovnanian, chief executive officer of Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., New Jersey’s biggest homebuilder, called on the government to provide an economic stimulus for the housing industry.

“If government wants to get to the root of the problem they need to fix housing first,” Hovnanian said in a conference call on Dec. 17.

Mr. Hovnanian, government trying to "fix" things is the root of the problem.