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Looks like a rotation into gold (finally). Gold has formed a high base in the $630 to $690 range, and appears to be trying to break out. If the Fed cuts rates and the dollar falls, this could goose gold up to $800 plus. Some of the miners are acting well too. AEM has broken out. NEM...

Looking at that web page isn't it obvious the guy has an axe to grind? I don't take data from strongly biased web sites because you don't know how the data has been altered, spun, sliced or diced to fit the author's agenda. Here's a table of official job numbers from the Bureau of Labor...

Actually you can make my formula work for San Francisco. You have to consider the high incomes and high available cash for down payments. There are tons of people with flush bank accounts from working at various tech and dot com firms over the years. With a limited inventory of detached homes...

In those other real estate busts where prices undershot fair value, was the driver of the bust lending or unemployment? That's what is unique about the current RE market, it's happening during a period of full employment. As long as employment holds up then the bottom should be determined by...

It's easy. You need only a few things: the median family income, the median single family home price and an online mortgage calculator. The underlying theory is simple: incomes and available lending leverage drives home prices. Let's do Las Vegas for example. 1. Find the median family...

You think we would be smart enough to take all the foreign capital that comes in and invest in infrastructure and to foster state-of-the-art high tech, green and productive industry. Then, once that infrastructure and industry blossoms, our GDP zooms and prosperity rules the day. That would...

You're right. Bloomberg TV was interviewing someone in the finance industry today -- I don't remember who -- and he was saying the same thing. Some people knew the loans were risky and they speculated. But other people were talked into bad loans by high pressure from brokers. "C'mon folks...

You're splitting hairs. If you truly believe in free markets then you must oppose all government subsidies, whether it's for tobacco farmers, oil drillers or homeowners. I take it from your response you enjoy your mortgage tax deduction, which means you are not a true free market advocate. No...

Relax. This is not a bailout. It's only a refinance plan for a small number of homeowners with reset adjustables who have the income stream to stay in their home if they refinanced. It's just a tweak of FHA rules. There will be no government bailout of foreclosures where the homeowner is in too...

Alright then, that means you are also opposed to tax deductions for mortgage interest. That's a subsidy.

Unregulated free markets -- no thanks. We tried that before. Roaring 1920's, the President said 'the business of America is business.' Unregulated credit and stock margins got overheated (like all free markets do), crashed, and gave us the Great Depression. Nope, the best economy is a mixed...

The engineer -- in college they are required to pass higher levels of mathematics than econ majors. Or, consider this -- engineers are right over 99% of the time (the vast majority of bridges never fall down), while economists are lucky to be right 50% of the time :-)

Well.... that's what the oil companies want you to believe. The cost to explore and lift oil runs about $30/bbl. The market price is around $70. That's about 50 cents profit per gallon of gasoline. When they compute the gasoline profit, they use the $70 oil figure. That's fine if the refinery...

It's Friday. It probably means that when the Fed called St Louis to confirm the rate somebody wasn't at their desk and the Blackberry was out of range on the 12th hole.

I agree. Just a few days ago the Fed said it would take a "calamity" for them to cut rates. Now, on the heels of the Dow selling off by only a few hundred points, Ben flip-flops and does a 0.5pt cut. Instead of asserting an image of strength, the Fed appears to be joining the panic. If they...

Bush is wrong. Again. Demand for gasoline is largely inelastic. Over the past few years we've seen gas go up and down by more than 50 cents a gallon without any apparent impact to the economy. If the price of gas were raised by 5 cents it would be virtually unnoticed -- the refiners would...

There's a silver lining to the ongoing credit contraction. Personally, I think American companies have become too self-absorbed in trying to make a fast buck off of leveraged financial deals. CEO's and directors seem to only care about golden parachutes and feathering their own nests. The quick...

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070719/BIZ01/707190317/1076/BIZ "Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann said his office is close to getting its first criminal indictments in its crackdown on predatory lending practices." "While Dann is already pursuing about 30 civil cases...

No, not all of them. Many are young families, first-time buyers, who were truly victimized by unscrupulous RE brokers or lenders. Some buyers were led to believe their teaser rates were fixed for 30 years. Some buyers were not told about negative amortization. Some buyers were victims of...