Dreaded Double-Dip Is Here
Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdeog.com
I have been telling you the economy is not in any kind of real recovery for more than a year. Sources I have been quoting have been proven right, and all the economic cheerleaders dead wrong. Reuters reported yesterday, “Data showing a double-dip in home prices, pessimistic consumers and a slowdown in regional manufacturing raised concerns on Tuesday that the economy’s soft patch could become protracted.” (Click here to read the complete Reuters report.) “Could become protracted?” It is protracted, and now the data is suggesting the economy is getting ready for another cliff dive.
Let’s concentrate on what has been a huge driver of the economy—housing. A double-dip in housing could start a daisy chain of very bad news for the big banks exposed to derivatives and residential real estate. According to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller home price report released yesterday, prices hit a new low in the first quarter–plunging 4.2% in just three months! If you look back six months, prices are off nearly 8% according to Case/Shiller. If you look on the chart on the first page of the Case/Shiller press release (click here), it clearly shows a double dip in housing. That is exactly what was predicted nearly a year ago on this site. One of the many people I quoted was renowned banking analyst Meredith Whitney who said last June, “Unequivocally, I see a double-dip in housing. There’s no doubt about it . . . prices are going down again.” (Click here to read my original post from a year ago.) At the time, many people thought Ms. Whitney was being overly pessimistic. In fact, her dire prediction has come true. This is despite the more than $2 trillion spent in QE1 and QE2 (printing money out of thin air to buy government and private debt) by the Federal Reserve. QE1 &QE2 helped fuel the stock market and artificially held mortgage interest rates at absurdly low levels and, yet, housing continues to crash. Good call Ms. Whitney!
Another one of my favorite people to quote is economist John Williams of Shadowstats.com. He has been warning about a sinking economy for months and has been saying any good news is nothing more than “bottom bouncing.” In his most recent report, Williams said, “Most major economic reports in April disappointed consensus expectations and either were flat or negative for the month—including real retail sales, industrial production, housing starts and durable goods orders. Where first-quarter GDP growth slowed versus the fourth-quarter, the stage is set for the GDP to turn negative, again, sometime in the next two quarters, reflecting what would become an official double-dip recession.” Housing has been an unqualified disaster with housing starts and new home sales off 75% from the 2005 peak. Existing home sales are off nearly 30%, and of the homes that are sold, nearly 40% are foreclosures. Four in 10 homes sold as distressed properties do not signal a healthy economy—just the opposite.
So, where are we headed? Well, all this bad news is going to push the Fed to print more money to keep the banks from going under. QE2 is supposed to end June 30, but the consensus of experts I quoted said it won’t be long before there is QE3. It will be either overt or covert, but it will be instituted. A double-dip in housing could start a daisy chain of very bad news for the big banks exposed to derivatives and residential real estate. (I wrote about this a few months back. Click here for the complete original post.) Williams agrees, and in his latest report he said, “The Federal Reserve is a private corporation owned by commercial banks or banking interests. The Fed’s primary job is not to generate sustainable economic growth, nor to contain inflation, but rather to keep the banking system sound and healthy. Accordingly QE1 and QE2 likely were targeted primarily at addressing systemic solvency issues, with the Fed using the weak economy as cover. As the systemic solvency crisis continues and/or intensifies, an overt or covert QE3 likely will be in place by third-quarter 2011, under the cover of a deteriorating economy. The broad inflation and economic outlooks discussed in Hyperinflation Special Report (2011) continue unabated.”
Williams thinks there is going to be a “great collapse” between now and 2014. Yes, the dollar and the entire financial system could go down in a giant hyper-inflationary ball of fire. The buying power of the buck will be completely wiped out. Please keep in mind, more than $12 trillion in liquid assets are held outside of the U.S. A stampede out of the dollar could trigger a hyperinflationary event at any time. At the very least, count on increasing inflation in everything but housing.
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About the Author
Greg Hunter
Greg is the producer and creator of USAWatchdog.com. The site’s slogan is “analyzing the news to give you a clear picture of what’s really going on.” The site will keep an eye on the government, your financial interests and cut through the media spin. USAWatchdog.com is neither Democrat nor Republican, Liberal or Conservative. Before creating and producing the site, Greg spent nearly 9 years as a network and investigative correspondent. He worked for ABC News and Good Morning America for nearly 6 years. Most recently, Greg worked for CNN for shows such as Paula Zahn Now, American Morning and various CNN business shows.
As usual, they steal from us and tell us it is for our own good, or better yet, its our fault they have to take everything away.
Thank God we have such an all knowing and powerful group of men in charge who are kind enough to come save us all from our freedom.
Gee I hope they come take the rest of my wealth from me in time, before I really hurt myself with it.
wait until they kill you and your family.
tim rifat on you tube
number 1 priority over all is 95% murder of worlds population,a giant blood ritual to put their “gods” into 250,000,000 humans bodies,and another 250,000,000 left alive for ritual sacrifice,sex slaves and just slaves with some canabalism thrown in.
absolutly true.
welcome to their lucifarianism/satanism.
Sorry Rex, I’m not going to believe that crap without some evidence. I see no case for “them” TPTB wanting to do this. I’d say its more likely TPTB just want to hang on to their power and keep the system in their favor.
While the coming economic collapse will thin out the herd, unless they start tossing nukes around (and a lot of them) or there is some new super virulent plague, we won’t see your 95% population decrease. And did they drug test the mentioned website’s staff?
Dear Greg,
With all due respect to Meredith Whitney et. al., I don’t think that housing has ever really pulled out of its slide. Housing, and indeed the economy might seem like a “double-dip,” but the reality I’ve been seeing has been a sort of “bouncing” drop all along. Sales of existing homes has been there, but it’s taking them a long time (say, an average of six months), to sell. And even then, the sales have not been made by persons such as you and I, but to bureaucrats, who in their theft of our money are flush with cash.
Second, according to Jim Rogers, we are already in a hyperinflation, in the middle of one (the high point of a hyperinflation is when it takes hundreds of dollars to buy a loaf of bread). All items are steadily going up in price, some by 40% or even 50%. Food and fuel are subject to demand, politics, and scarcity, but everything else is driven by the two (food to feed the producers, fuel to ship in the food).
Just my thoughts.
Thank you Sam for weighing in and supporting the site.
Greg
Sam and Greg,
You mentioned that housing purchases have gone to bureaucrats rather than private U.S. citizens. How do you find out? This would be a very interesting topic to pursue. Also, it reminds me of sales of city parking meter collection systems and city roads. We had a few articles along these lines this year, but not recently. I wonder what’s happening or projected to happen in this arena, also.
🙂 Diane
Two income city, county, state or federal workers are buying alot of the distressed properties for rental income – they are flush with good credit and cash. There incomes have not fallen and for the last three years or so, before the inflation hit, they benefited by the contraction of prices of goods. Take for example a spouse, a city or county worker’s wage in Calif. about 75K, then the spouse, a fireman or police officer maybe, wage $120K, that $225 together. Those are the type of people buying up the distressed properties in Ca along with your basic crooked invester class which has always been around. There is literally tens of thousands here losing their homes and renting so rents are going up as well further hurting the “kicked” our prior home owner. The middle class is shrinking while the buracrats are moving up to the invester class from the middle class.
I must disagree with you. I am a state worker in a large Southern state. We have not had raises for six years. We are experiencing a 3% pay cut this year. We are not “flush with cash” we “stole” from anybody. We work hard and do things that are required by civilized society. Most of us are proud of our work. In my state we have no income tax, so we are ALL “taxpayers.” But don’t let cold, hard facts get in the way of your bigoted hatred.
Greg,inflation in food, gas, utilities has eaten away at the employed middle class as well as low or non-existent upward wage patterns. Downsizing is a new word for the middle class but is taking on real reality now. One less car, fewer electronics, eating out less, making due with a product or service just a little longer, etc., is the name of the game for the working class. “Downsizing” is just another word for getting poorer in my mind but it is here nevertheless. Great buys out there for the invester class but they will only invest when they think there is a floor, leaving real estate to go even further down.
All in all, a QE3 will only kick the can down the road a little further, causing more inflation of necessities and a nation getting poorer for the working class, a very unhealthy situation. But as the article said the Fed is only there for the banks. This country may have to admit sooner rather than later the “stagflation” (inflation without growth) is the new norm and not much can be done about it because our people who were at guard went to sleep. Debt, debt, debt, is the cause of all our troubles, but you can’t get out of debt without real sacrifice and hard work, both of which our government has no intention of doing. The invester class is close to the goal line now, but I wouldn’t gloat too much after they score, real anger may loom in hungry impoverished people.
Art,
Peter Yastrow (Drudge Report, CNBC article, http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236764), states that we are on the verge of a very “deep, deep, recession,” partly caused by a “innovation downturn.”
Duh.
Government, at he behest of its corporate allies, have pretty much quashed the cottage industry. What you or I can do as hobbies, we cannot do as a business, because then we face hefty fees that are nothing but chump change to large businesses. Smaller businesses also are forced to conform to a ton of environmental, safety, employment, and other “laws,” garbage where they can never hope to compete.
The only way out is to get rid of these onerous “laws,” as well as lobbyists and corporate campaign “contributions” (read: bribes). Only then will this country be able to compete again.
Greg Said:
“A stampede out of the dollar could trigger a hyperinflationary event at any time”
I was watching Prince Alwaleed this weekend on CNN and he said that he will still leave his money in America because they’re not that many places in the world that are stable right now.
So, I suppose, I’m asking what would trigger this stampede out of the dollar and where would they put their money?
Who would China sell their dollars to? Would they be any buyers?
Thanks
NM,
What the Prince says publicly and what he does privately may be 2 different things. The selling could come from literally anywhere remember $12 trillion in liquid assets are held outside the U.S. I think the selling is going on right now in an orderly fashion but thinks can get out of control in a hurry. Look at the meltdown in 2008. There were plenty of warning signs but when things started to crack up it fell apart in a hurry and this will happen again. I just don’t know exactly when, but it will happen because nothing has really been fixed.
Greg
Would anyone planning to leave a certain asset in a big way tell the world.so they.could exit.ahead of him.
No
Hi Greg!
Looks like everything is converging for a covenant this fall that will start a seven year tribulation. This covenant is going to be currency related as the mark that will be enforced 3 1/2 years into that tribulation will control who may and may not buy or sell. Please encourage all to prepare thier heart, mind, and soul for the things to come. Visit our site http://www.unleavenedbreadministries.org for more understanding of what we all will endure in the years ahead!
In CHRIST! Rob
Thanks Rob for the comment and your perspective!
Greg
Greg,
Everybody needs to read this:
http://thefundamentalview.blogspot.com/2011/06/bombshell-did-former-imf-chief-get-set.html
Just copy/paste it in your browser address bar. I can’t figure out how to get Firefox to paste it as a hotlink.
I can see now that it gets “hot” after you submit the comment.
Greg,
Don’t post the original comment. It appears that the story may be just that – a hoax. Thanks.
ok greg.
what should i do! im 50 yrs old no insurance.
40k in the bank. 1800.00 in silver. 1,500.00 in gold.
home is paid off.
i had planed to make it to 59 1/2 and retire with ira,but with my money loosing 1/2 its invested price in 2008 iv taken it out.
iv bought 2 yrs food,solar panels,wood fireplace.
free (clean) flowing water is what i cant find.
ps. the new ssi date for me is 70 yrs old.
any advise from anyone would be good.
James,
Keep doing what your doing–preparing and saving. You need more exposure to gold and silver coins that you have now. That is my only suggestion, otherwise you are doing great man!! Keep it up.
Greg
Don’t freak out, James. I’m over 50 too. Go over to
http://www.survivalistsboards.com
They cover just about everything, share information. Do the research and then buy what you need. You gain the experience by trial and error and this site has helped me by using their info to make a better choice.
Have me beat on 2 years food and solar power. ;0) WoW!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/sell/chibrkbus-sp-us-home-price-index-falls-to-doubledip-in-march-20110531,0,176267.story
The last line says it all.
” Washington D.C was the only city to report a small uptick in March prices from February and a year earlier.”
Don’t worry all the feds are doing just fine and dandy.
Very good point Brian.
Greg
I am looking for a repeat of 2008 when the fund managers have put their cash positions back into the market and the institutional investors are back, full in. I just read that Calpers made 18.5% on their stock investments this year. When the Wallstreet banks have successfully sold their positions back to the sheeple, they will let it go again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Will,
Yes I smell money harvesting in the air and this is a great time to update the article I did 2 years ago. Thank you for the comment.
Greg
Greg,
Would this be the right statement? In the next few years housing will crash in terms of gold.
Thanks in advance,
Sarkis
Sarkis,
In my opinion, yes.
Greg
I don’t believe we can have hyperinflation in the US as long as it remains the World’s reserve currency. Every other episode of hyperinflation (during fiat currency experiments) happened to countries who did not have a reserve currency. The problem here can (will?) happen if an alternative to the dollar comes in then money will flow out of the US in a fashion you laid out. Until this time, we won’t have hyper inflation, but terrible 1970’s stagflation.
If Oil prices got so high that the economy couldn’t function properly the economy would collapse. This collapse would cause money to be near worthless and I’d bet it would be linked to hyperinflation. If the economy can not run because lack of oil then money is worthless.
what if the walkers made more walkers..?…in 1965 the average house cost 8700 dollars and the average wage was 8700…tiday the average wage is 24,000, seems fractional reserve banking debt dollars that compete equally with saved dollars buying houses were not involved..? would walkers and revision to that mean include free time enough to tend ones own food productions and gardens and market production abilities and free up capital investments to restrengthen the country and people…?rebuild the economy of people.?
Dear Greg,
I look forward to your candid articles. The only real hope for change comes with Ron Paul’s candidacy and leadership ability. I pray for the American people to see through the mainstream media’s dismissal of his candidacy. Maybe then, and only then, will their be a chance to defeat the Fed’s stranglehold on our economy.
George,
We must have sound money as THE basic building block to any lasting “recovery.” Thank you for comment.
Greg
Greg, USA Watchdog may just be the most valuable information source on the web. Every one who visits this site should be systematically directing their friends and associates to it. Far too many people have been and are being mislead by “happy talk” idiots who are more interested in churning the market than in telling the truth.
Thank you for all that you do.
Frank
Thank you Frank Brady.
Greg
Well, Greg ….. you are right once again. You have been predicting this, with chilling accuracy, for some time. Frankly though, it never felt to me like we ever got out of the first recession.
Keep up the good work, my friend.
Thank you Dave. I know you are a business broker in N.C., and you are on the front lines of the economy. Your opinion means a lot. Thank you for your support!
Greg
I get David’s point. At this stage, how can you have a double-dip in housing or recession if the first dip is ongoing and ongoing and ongoing?
Perhaps future teminology will evolve to include deep-dip, double deep-dip, radical dip, and eventually sheep-dip recession.
My apologies to sheep, who are not to blame. I do have issues with sheeple and the political dips they support.
Aside: Financial innovation got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out of it? (With admiration for Will Rogers, who never met a dip he didn’t like.)
…ikb
For Greg here it’s not a double dip.
If you’re some bonehead that ran his mouth off on national TV about green shoots and recoverys, then it HAS to be a double dip.
It’s been said before and will be said again: you can’t buy yourself out of debt.
I’d love my local hardware store to be there tomorrow, but giving them my savings is not going to help them (‘cuz no one can afford to buy their stuff) and then we’ll both be out on the streets.
I read a comment not too long ago from someone who was taking a very dire perspective. He made the point to figure out how to live on your own and buy guns to protect your family. For when the time comes when everything does collapse and we’re starving.
I don’t prescribe to that line of thinking… But when I re-read your analysis, Greg, knowing your track record for getting the calls right, I start to get uncomfortable in thinking that life could get a lot worse in the months to come. And there’s just about nothing that I can do about it.
-dan
Is it possible that housing appreciation could actually rebound or at least stabilize in a hyper-inflation environment? My thinking is that when alot of money in the stock market is being wiped
people are still going to want to put their non discretionary income into something of value, and to me housing fits that need, because food and shelter are still core needs.
Jonathan,
My only problem with the rising real estate prices in a hyperinflationary environment is interest rates. What happens to housing prices when interest rates go back up to just 8% or 9%? I think it is going be very difficult to get any real inflation adjusted price increase in housing when rates go up–and they will go up. Thank you for you comment.
Greg
If China has used their dollar denominated holdings as collateral for the purchase of hard assets worldwide, will they really care about the value of the dollar? It would seem to me that the weakening of the dollar would serve to benefit them even more.
Where am I wrong in this thinking?
JimC.
I don’t think you are. Thank you for your participation in this site.
Greg
Thanks Greg for yet another great article. I live on the Gulf Coast and have likened our US economy to a cat 5 hurricane. It’s been on everyone’s radar for a long time now, but the outer bands are just now lashing at our shoreline. When one takes in the width and breadth of it, the size and strength of this storm is incomprehensible. And knowing that every single prevailing wind in the world is pushing it with full force straight for us, is very scary to say the least. The sky is falling??? I say no, but in fact the financial world as we have known it IS coming to an end. Just ahead…are some very, very uncomfortable times for the Republic.
The great recession has just been renamed the great depression II.
And I thought the the talking heads said things were getting better?
We are all in the same boat now. Good luck!
Remember to keep your dignity and honor.
This marks the beginning of the end. Look for some thirty percent inflation (unofficial, of course) by the end of the year. 2012 will be worse particularly as fear builds nearing December 21st. Recovery won’t come until 2015 or later. Depends on if we embrace the new currency and government or not.
Hope everyone is prepared, but know most of you are not. I wish you all the best of luck and may God bless you and be with you throughout the times to come.
I don’t think that there will be a QE3 as such. It has several flaws from the point of view of the Fed – bad connotations associated with it (inflation is becoming visible to the man on the street, despite all the rhetoric), it has a set date of expiry and a set amount of money that would be created – which allows the market to easily anticipate it, so its effects are rather muted.
No, they will find some other, different way for printing money – one that does not expire and one that puts no hard limit on the amount of money they can create.
“Dreaded Double-Dip Is Here” This only confirms, after months, what all of already knew. It took the govt. months to make it official.
And, it’s only going to get worse. It’s going to be a long, hot summer and I don’t mean the weather as I see riots in Spain, the Middle East and other EU countries with high unemployment & the youth finally realizing that they really don’t have any future.
Great article!!
Really? I remember reading about the double dip years ago. The last people to buy into the Real Estate Scam of the mid-2000’s and purchase using 5 year ARM’s have now found out why their home values have depreciated; Unless you became a director, vice president or CEO in your company since purchasing your home, you cannot afford your mortgage! So if you bought at the height of the bubble say 2006, early 2007 your ARM is up and now you get to pay the real monthly mortgage.
Everything depends on middle class jobs and disposable incomes. The scary thing is we have an over-educated generation of mid20’s to early 40 somethings, and an undereducated baby-boomer generation who have all of the highest paying middle class jobs, and they aren’t retiring. So how does a guy who is 35 with an MBA buy a house and pay off his student loans on an income that is less than his undereducated father had 30 years ago? He doesn’t. He can’t afford a home. So the baby boomers can sell their property to the banks, the wealthy, or themselves because no one else can afford them. This is what happens when a society gets too greedy, it starts stealing from the next generation and then it chastises them for not working hard! $14 Trillion on the books, $100-300 T off the books. Someone has been stealing from the youth of this country blind!
You should take down the news article on cell phones causing cancer. All they have is a bunch of correlation studies that say this person was using a cell phone and got a tumor so it must be cause and effect. There is no known mechanism for low frequency radio waves to interfere with DNA or even penetrate the body deeply. Otherwise they would use radar instead of xrays to look at your liver. To repeat: they do not have a theory as to how radio waves would cause cancer, just some correlations.
The electro-magnetic spectrum goes like this:
very low frequencies
radio waves
high frequency radio waves
microwaves
infrared
visible light
x rays
gamma rays
maybe higher energy particle exist
Cell phones are high frequency radio wave devices operating at low power, typically 3-5 watts, so if sitting in front of a 1000 watt infrared heater or watching a 100 watt TV isn’t giving you cancer your cell phone isn’t either. It’s the stuff above the visible spectrum that causes the problems.
nonplused,
Thank you for your info and analysis.
Greg
Whoops I forgot ultraviolet which still doesn’t cause cancer and some animals can see.
My concern in a hyperinflationary environment is the price of wine. For some time now wine has been a deflationary item; always on sale with ever increasing bargains. If hyper-inflation hits what do you think will happen? Bouvez bien, monsieur!
Todd Said:
“So the baby boomers can sell their property to the banks, the wealthy, or themselves because no one else can afford them”.
Or the one’s who can get financial help from their parents or grand-parents or special discounted loans like those offered to military people.
What is a Middle class income nowadays anyway?
Greg –
Long time admirer of your work, but I am in disagreement with your views as of late. There is no way things will turn out like some of your posts and your comments predict.
You are incorrect that gold/silver will go up in value like you have stated on your site. There is too much manipulation going on behind the scenes to ever let it go too much past where it is. And the same goes for housing. Will interest rates go up? Yes, but not leading to a housing collapse. It will lead to regrowth.
For you and all of the others that think gold/silver will shoot up much higher, I feel bad for you. You have normalcy bias towards this and your mindset is too rigid to see the truth…which is the market manipulation that goes on behind the scenes that will continue indefinitely IN SOME FORM OR ANOTHER that you nor anyone else can predict!
Plus those that control the game are not going to let the sheeple wake up. No hard feelings. I like your work, but not sure if you get what I am saying either.
Mike Weinstein
Michael,
Thank you for your support and comment. The Fed bailed out the world to the tune of $12.3 trillion. More than $12 trillion in liquid assets are held outside the country. The days of the U.S. dollar being used as the world reserve currency are numbered. These are just a few of the reasons gold will rise in price relative the dollar. With all due respect to you, I do not have normalcy bias. I have facts, and they all point to a currency crisis in the U.S. dollar. People told me gold would not go up much past $1000 in 2009, now look at the price. It will go much higher regardless of the manipulation that will not be able to counter the overwhelming trend. Your only argument against gold and silver is “there is too much manipulation behind the scenes to ever let it go up much past where it is.” There was no manipulation in the markets before this year? I think not, and you offer a very weak argument on this point. Please don’t feel bad for me. Feel bad for yourself for missing a heck of a run so far. I get what you are saying, and I firmly and factually disagree with you. As I always say “good men can disagree.”
Greg
Hi Mike, I’ll keep my PMs. When Central Banks started buying gold and now silver, it should be a clue that the dollar is on its way out
Greg, the American public stands by as if ‘It doesn’t effect me why bother to question the status quo’. Americans stand silent while the democrats embraced Carl Marx to grow & increase the power of the government to punish anyone with money, while the republicans have embraced those same powers to strip the citizens of their rights, privileges and immunities from a corrupt court system stacked with federal judges that always sides with the “corporate” government. Our tyrannical government has become obsessed with tracking every thing we do. Between both party extremes,governmental power has become all encompassing no different than any third world country. Congress stands by as federal judges & regulators go after foreign investors while the real crooks remain free to return to Wall Street Banks & continue their manipulation of markets knowing they are protected from prosecution.
We hear the MS talking on what will be the hit movie this summer,what a waste of TV time. The facts that the EPA does even release the amounts of radioactive fall out that covers the USA from Japans non story of 260 square miles of Dead Zone around the nuke plants. US storm victims soon fade away but the politics never stops.
Greg, it is you, Jim Sinclair’s,GATA & a few others that bring any real truthful reporting to those that seek it while the rest of America is a sleep & will awaken to a nightmare that will last a long time for those that did not take action against the PE actions.
Thank you for the hard work you do. M.Smith, US Navy Disabled Vet. P.S. Physical Silver/Gold are the only real money, don’t forget to protect you & your family.
Thank you M Smith for your comment advice and service to this country!
Greg
Greg, The founders of our Constitution were not so much trying to protect themselves and their families as trying to give us (their posterity) a nation and a system to free us from the scum that controlled George III. They did very well, actually, but we have let them down. We could get back on track by re-instating the Glass-Steagall legislation and taking the “financial instruments” bubble off our backs. H.R. 1489 is once again before Congress, and many millions in lobbying effort are being spent to stop it from becoming law. (It would have become law as part of the Financial Reform mess but for one vote!) Please call your Congresspersons and demand they make a public statement on their position towards this bill.
Greg…..spot on as usual with real estate the real maker of this continued depression!
Housing continues to drop across the board:
Ex: This condo complex( In Naples, FL) I have been looking to buy into last fall continues to drop. It is not unusual for a property to be given a 5% to 7% haircut at least 3 times and still being on the market 6 months later. They hope to snag some sucker from the North or foreign tourist………….good luck. Census figures show vacant homes in Florida(in season) 30% empty and in distress!
EX: In Western NY prices continue to fall in our area that never had a boom. The average time for a listing to be on market is 5 months with a 10% haircut off listing price!
No wonder all local goverments/school districts up here that rely on property taxes to fund themselves are laying off people. People are now challenging their assessments as they see the fire sales. Rochester New York just announced 150 non teaching layoffs this week with a projected another 300 teachers in a few weeks.
The unemployment numbers released today show we are going the wrong way to climb out of this depression. Krugman in todays NYT screams again that neither party has a clue to solve unemployment or even wants to talk about it.