The Golden Truth: More On The TRUTH About The Housing Market

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

More On The TRUTH About The Housing Market

Several analysts were spinning the slight bounce in the Case-Schiller home price index today by exclaiming that today's number is a green shoot. I'd like to un-spin this by saying that I predicted in February that we might see a slight dead-cat bounce in housing this spring as the trillions being printed by the Fed and injected into the system would cause a slight pause in the downward spiral in volumn and prices.

Enjoy this bounce while it lasts. Here is a very ominous quote from Mark Hanson of

http://www.fieldcheckgroup.com/blog/

“National New Home Sales, on a monthly basis, don’t even add up to half of the total foreclosure activity in California alone in a single month.”

And that is just California's foreclosures. Add in the rest of the country and you have a recipe for a supply/demand catastrophe. The next leg down in this mess is going to hit in the next few months. Anectdotally, I know someone who put a McMansion on the market here in Denver a few months ago priced at a $1 million. They had no showings. They reduced it to $900k - no showings. They are considering pricing it down to $700,000 to see if it will move.

This was in yesterday's Chicago Tribune, which featured a house that had been originally offered at $4 million and is now priced at $2.85 million:

"Luxury prices keep falling - Mansions priced at $1 million-plus are harder to sell, so owners ask for less -- and add perks"

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Why Gold?

Gold is the world's oldest currency. You exchange your fiat currency (dollars, euros, yen, yuan) into gold as an insurance policy against catastrophic Central Bank and Government policies which serve to destroy the value of fiat currencies and destroy democracy.

Gold can ONLY be considered an investment to the extent that it remains significantly and historically undervalued in relation to the fiat currencies against which its value is measured. Otherwise it remains the world's oldest currency and is completely free from the counterparty risk associated with currency by Government fiat (i.e. fiat currencies rely on a Government's "full faith and credit.")

Quote Of The Month Courtesy of "Jesse"

Unfortunately for Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, and their friends at the BIS, they have not yet figured out how to print physical gold, silver, and other essential commodities, and the world is reaching the point where it might simply start ignoring the New York based markets with respect to essential commodities such as basic materials, oil, foodstuffs, and the like, as they become increasingly irrelevant, fraudulent, and Orwellian. And then where will the financial engineers be, except with no more excuses and no place to hide?

Here is the link to his entire commentary, well worth a read:

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/07/gold-daily-chart-shock-and-awe-for.html

Great Quote From Jim Rogers On Govt CPI Reporting

JR: I mean, we have inflation now. If you go to the shop, whether it’s groceries, or education or insurance or health care, prices are going up for everything. The government lies about it in the US. Some countries lie, many countries don’t: Australia, China, India and Norway. Many countries don’t lie about it and acknowledge that we have inflation. Others lie about it, the UK and the US, but if you go shopping you know prices are up.

Q: Are you saying that the American Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a lie?

JR: In my opinion, yes, of course it is. Have you looked at it? They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades. When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it. It’s the same with many things. It’s staggering some of the tortuous reasoning that the BLS has used over the past 25 or 30 years. When the price of gasoline goes up, they say it’s not really going up because it’s better gasoline, better quality, therefore you’re getting more for your money. I mean, it’s endless, the stuff that they say and for some reason people sit there, although more and more people are catching on, and accept what the government says.

source: www.clusterstock.com

Quote of the Week

"The primary function of a Central Bank is to engage in the massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy elite. The Federal Reserve was set up to do this with the blessing and support of Congress." - Dave in Denver

If you refuse to believe the above, please read "The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve" by G. Edward Griffin and then explain to me why the Senate voted down the Vitter Amendment and Congress refuses to pass a law requiring a full audit of the Fed, even though the Fed is using taxpayer-backed money to bailout Wall Street and Europe.