HARD FROST

Negative numbers continue to roil the once confident middle-class waters in the harrowing Housing sector-- The now inevitable hard landing of the punctured bubble in the real (How real is/was it??--) estate industry is yielding depression among some, despair among others and from a fairly high number of current (but for how long could be problematical) homeowners outright denial-- The inventory of unsold houses continues to pile upward as potential sellers hold out hope for the mirage of higher prices which are failing unblinkingly to materialize-- Fear is that those compelled to relocate for the prerequisites of employment will dump their houses just to get rid of them creating an atmosphere conducive to panic-- Someone named Big Joe will ask aloud why he should work thirty years to pay off a mortgage worth way more than what the house will be fetch futurewise and no one will have a plausible answer-- That's when Big Joe's common sense begins to widely resonate and the great Running of the Bears will wildly stampede suburban Pamploma everywhere-- Banks that financed the suburban encirclement of most every state's Mayberry RFD's supplanting zillions of acres of prime agricultural land with an asphalt concrete blitzkrieg of housing and commercial strip developments are skittish to say the least-- How many non-performing loans will they find tolerable??--Professional optimists are working overtime to create any semblance of positive spin but too many other convergent and negative factors limit the options-- We are supposed to be distracted and excited and intoxicated by the ascension of a female show biz personality to a position anchoring a news/infotainment extravaganza-- Wages/income are failing to keep pace with the rising cost of Children, Health, Food, Education, Electricity, Gasoline, Deisel, Heating Oil, Natural Gas and let's not forget the big one the rising cost of Borrowed Money or a new one the cost of Foreclosure nor to refrain from mentioning the hidden higher process costs endemic to using credentialed agents of the Law to access the mandated among those legal processes-- Refinancing the house at rates 2% higher will not put extra money in the pocketbooks of little and middle america-- Working class commuters last winter had to choose hard between heating the house and going to work--Only so many more restaurant meals may be entertained before the middle class credit lines go poof and they begin to face similar dilemmas this winter-- A winter by the way the Farmer's Almanac predicts will be more than just a wee bit colder than milder ones of recent vintage-- My neighbor a commercial banker opted to mimic Mr. Bush's retort to Mr. Putin's comment at the G8 Summit recently that Russia would be ill served by a democracy akin to the one now in Iraq, --'Just Wait!!!' the banker said adding 'Worse is on the way'-- Nascar Nation and the American Dream will Not be camping happy--