BLEAK HOUSE

It will now require nearly 8 months to whittle down the outstanding inventory of houses currently for sale nationwide, a 30% rise from a year ago-- Extant headlines everywhere seem to echo the gloom as existing home sales plummeted downward at the quickest rate (three times faster than expectations) in 18.........yes, eighteen....... years while home prices came in second in the downshifting race plunging at the steepest rate in 13 years-- Crumbling Consumer Confidence, a notoriously fickle number usually based on sentiment and/or exuberant moods induced by the prospects of another credit-binge, finished a distant third pegged at numbers not witnessed since last August-- The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index drooped below their own economists' already negative expectations for the 6 month outlook while its Present Situation Index also declined for the first time in 6 months-- Optimism looks to be running on empty--

Fed Chairman Bernanke looks pinioned between the proverbial rock and the hard place-- Does he raise interest rates to protect the crumbling dollar cookie, recently reaching twenty year lows against the Brit Pound and on the lower rungs on the Euro ladder nearly an all-time record, risking a death blow to the local economy (recently fueled to faux euphoria by fading dollars) or does he lower rates deploying into hyper-inflationary terrain in a vain attempt at salvaging the seriously slowing domestic economy(being hammered by the humbled Housing bubble's puncture) while risking the collapse of the entire globalist system-- Double trouble on the home-front as well as worldwide considering large stakeholders in the weak American currency may seek greener returns elsewhere-- The threat that foreign capital may take flight is both real and serious-- Are the brood of elitist vipers locked in paralytic stupor at the Federal Reserve's arcane temple soliloquizing, 'To fish or cut bait??--

Protectionist volleys have been fired across the bow of the Chinese media-piracy ship by wounded Hollywood hotheads unconcerned in their myopic hubris that our slowing economic and political system might be inescapably held captive by Chinese financial credit-- While Confucious may have once allowed it wisdom for a dog to bite the hand that feeds it poison, the dog must actually be in position to deliver his fangs to its intended target and it must reasonably assume it can depart the premises without incurring damaging wrath from the other hand-- Wisdom Washington clearly failed to apply when it unleashed Shock and Awe quagmiring itself into oil rich Iraq between two religious sects bent on murdering and torturing each other non-stop as well as young American troops whenever the opportunity avails itself-- A penny borrowed is not synonymous with a penny earned!!!!!--

The Decider rattles his veto threat and the demies demand deadlines for troop withdrawal in a strange absurdist dance being played out in slow motion as the only game in DC but US currency reserves larded Chinese coffers last quarter to a tune of $1.2 trillion...... no small amount of power even calculating their globally diminishing value-- The Chinese Government now holds trump but appears at least temporarily content to continue the increasingly costlier subsidizing of the nightmarish misadventure in Iraq as well as the ongoing American consumer's feeding frenzy at the credit trough-- Opting for craven indebtedness alleviates most directorial options on the control panel in the boardrooms of Manifest Destiny--

Gasoline for May delivery surged 3.3% in New York, more than 7 cents, to $2.2826/gal., an 8 month high and the summer driving season only beginning to kick in-- Over the past month alone, gasoline prices skyrocketed 11%-- Inventories are at 18 month lows-- Operational capacity at refineries came in down nearly 3 full percentage points when experts had forecast an increase-- These earmarks bode serious trouble for those whose manifest difficulty in meeting monthly house payments continue to swell the mounting rolls of foreclosure, default and delinquency-- Commuters have no options but to drive themselves ever onward toward insolvency-- Everywhere the ghost of Tom Joad wonders how to escape the crushing load of magnum debt and the liability chains of negative equity at ground zero--

One winces sharply when the largest US home builder, D R Horton reveals an income loss of 85% for the first quarter-- New home orders down 37% for the quarter took nearly a $2 billion tumble in dollar value while cancellations of prospective buyers hit 32%-- No matter how much they try, these are numbers upon which the advertising/public relations world of economic forecasters cannot paste ubiquitous smiley faces--

This collapse of the Housing sector is occurring against the backdrop of a hollowed-out manufacturing base, a diminishing supply of oil based energy production worldwide, a wobbly dollar losing favor and face worldwide, an agriculture bent on speculative fantasy before common sense, our national army on the verge of breakdown in the increasing likelihood of abject failure in Iraq, an endangered unpopular administration coupled to a paralytic Congress clearly out of touch with world reality and the will of its American voters-- Living beyond our means enriched the money/mortgage lenders and bloated financiers while pulling the rug out from under the real economy-- Bloated consumers still spend money not yet earned hoping oblivion catches them before foreclosure punctures their obese bubble-- Sooner or Later sees Big Trouble waiting Right Around the Corner--