Economists weigh in on housing data
Before I link to an article in the Wall Street Journal Online Economists Blog, a few old jokes might set the plate so to speak.
Someone becoming more of an old joke each day >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Q: Why did God create economists?
A: In order to make weather forecasters look good.
Economics is the only field in which two people can receive a Nobel Prize for saying exactly the opposite thing.
The First Law of Economics: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economics: They're both wrong.
Enough fun, back to business. 
Highlights from the WSJ Online:
Economists and others weigh in on the September decline in existing home sales.
Existing home sales peaked during the summer of 2005 and have since fallen by 30%.
The primary impetus behind the September decline in purchasing activity was the virtual shutdown of the credit markets during the final two weeks of August.
The median sales price fell 5.7% in September.
Supply soared …
The housing outlook continues to deteriorate…
The National Association of Realtors said that the “August credit crunch had a big impact” on home sales.
Click here to read, Economists React: 'Further Declines Coming'.
A reminder, there is no national housing market, all real estate is local, and statistics for the Charleston real estate market were posted here a few weeks ago. For example, while unit sales have declined sharply in the Charleston South Carolina real estate market, prices on an average or median basis have not declined on a year over year basis by anything close to the above mentioned numbers and in fact have increased by 1.56% and 3.13% respectively over the previous 12 months. Some real estate markets that were especially overheated apparently are contributing more significantly to declines than markets that were somewhat more reasonable during the housing run up of the past few years.
Continuing in the spirit of a little fun among the bad news, also courtesy of WSJ Online, a lawyer bride wasn't happy with the floral arrangements at her wedding and is suing the florist. I hope neither the unhappy bride or her new husband visit the dry cleaning store in Washington which was the scene of the other recent stupidity coming out of the legal profession. Click here to read all about the lawyer bride.
I'm sure we'll need to find some good jokes for the financial wizards on Wall Street who invented SIV's and CDO's contributing to the mortgage mess. Merrill Lynch is obviously not laughing after writing off $7.9B today. That's $7.9 Billion with a big B. Check your quarterly statement.