On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:15:32 -0500, Ignoramus17346
wrote:
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Let's say, for example, that house prices fall by 15 more percent.
That would, surely, put a lot more mortgages underwater and further
reduce the banks' capitals. Would the Federal government still be able to
prop up the banks?
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Housing prices shot the highest and fell the most here.
==========
Losing Las Vegas Shows How Americans Crap Out in Housing Casino
By Daniel Taub and Dan Levy
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg)
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Las Vegas leads the nation in falling home prices, foreclosures
and stalled construction projects as economic fear and loathing
becomes the city's biggest export.
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The ``main nerve'' of the American dream runs through this desert
metropolis, Hunter S. Thompson concluded in his 1971 book, ``Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas.'' Chopra, the spiritual teacher whose
writings Sogoloff has turned to, said that less than 2 percent of
the $3 trillion to $4 trillion that circulates in the world's
markets daily is used for goods and services.
`Pure Speculation'
``The rest is trying to make money off money,'' said Chopra,
adjunct professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of
Management in Evanston, Illinois. ``Our financial structure
which, of course, is an American system but is now global, is
pure speculation. It's gambling.''
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All this in a state that led the U.S. housing boom with an
estimated 275,000 new homes built from 2000 to 2007, a 33 percent
increase that was the highest of any state, according to the
Census Bureau. Now, many of those homes are empty and worth less
than when they were built.
{in point of fact -- if you can't sell them, they aren't worth
anything :-( }
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Home Prices Fall
Las Vegas's housing market is the worst in the U.S. Home values
in the area at the end of the second quarter had fallen to March
2004 levels, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home-Price Index.
Las Vegas prices fell 30 percent in July from a year earlier, the
biggest drop among 20 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The median price in August was $210,000, and three out of four
home sales were bank-owned properties that were foreclosures, the
Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors said. Nevada's
foreclosure rate was the highest of any state for the 20th
straight month in August, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
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for complete article click on
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...96I&refer=home
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).