Economy posts surprising growth

First, it's "your" to indicate the possessive. "You're" is the contraction of "you are".

Second, I've already demolished your historical arguments elsewhere and I'm sorry but I'm too lethargic right now to hunt down the relevant past threads. Go find them yourself.

Third, your assertion that I haven't been unable to explain current events is completely at odds with the historical record. Please pardon me for a certain amount of crowing but to paraphrase the old saying "It ain't crowing if you really done it". Not only have I been able to explain what's happening, my short term predictions in light of the business cycle, the Fed's interest rate moves and a host of other factors have been right while those of the triumphalists have been wrong. Even while Bernanke was raising rates, I told you exactly what would happen. I said that the most credit-sensitive sectors of the economy (first housing and then the banks) would be first to get hit. Oh no, you said. Housing prices in Amercia can never go down and Bush's tax cuts have made the American middle class so rich, they'll keep buying houses at the same pace. I told you that consumer spending growth would eventually decline. Oh no, said. Bush's tax cuts have made the American middle class so rich, they'll keep spending growth going at this rate. I said that ecnonomic growth will begin to trend lower. Oh no, you said. Bush's tax cuts have made the American economy interest-rate-hike-proof. So, what's it like to be so totally wrong?

Not really. All I have to do is show that:

a) the triumphalists have been wrong in their reading of current economic events and therefore are wrong about their projections. And I've won that war.

b) the economic effects that Bush's fanboys want to credit exclusively to Bush's tax cuts are better explained using mainstream economics. I've done that every single time that you, Keller, Matt, Ted, or wingtips has coming running in here with your latest Acme Ratdog Defeator retread of long discredited arguments, half-truths and outright bullshit. Every. Single. Time. Again, go back to the historical record contained in the relevant threads. It's all there.

Of course, my job is made all the easier by the fact that you don't have a convincing fact-based argument to support your case. Like I said before, wingtips gave it his best but the numbers didn't support him. After years of trying, you still can't offer anything of substance or anything new that would further the debate. All you do is spout arguments that have already been blasted into pitiful bite-sized bits of charred smoking rubble. Even worse than proving that you don't know what you're talking about, your goebbelian repetition indicates that you have no interest in objective reality if that reality confilcts with your wish-fantasies or that you're a study in psychopathology, specfically the condition of denial.

Uhm, don't look now, but I'm the one forecasting a soft landing - for reasons that have nothing to do with Bush or his tax cuts. Matt is the one who tries to tell us how Bush has been such a wonderful boon to the American middle class while at the same time basing his investment strategy (or so he says) on our middle class being so screwed that they have to default on their mortgages.

 

Shirley you can't be serious?

You've been claiming the economic rally would be short lived and forewarning about an economic slowdown for month after month year after year. Despite skyrocketing commodity prices, one of the largest natural disasters in US history, and the bursting of speculative housing bubble, that slowdown never came. Me? I made no predictions, only posted economic data as it came out. Now, four and half years later, when every economic pundit is predicting a "soft landing" you parrot the line and do a "SuperDave happy dance"?

Look, I'm not sure why this is so personal for you and I've no idea what will happen in 2007. Perhaps Roubini will be right for once? Regardless, I will content to dollar cost average money into the market.

Cheers!

P.S. Grammar smack is gay.

 

"Year aftere year"? Only in whatever alternate universe you live in. In this universe, I've been saying that since 2004 when Bernanke began raising rates. And I was right.

You should stop watching Kudlow and go read a newspaper. Real GDP growth since 2Q06 has been below even the subdued trend of the interest-rate-driven recovery of 2003 through 2005.

I meant "you" collectively. You personally usually just issued valueless non sequiturs from the sidelines while Matt and wingtips actually tried to add value to the threads.

Again, only in your alternate universe. In reality, I've been pretty consistent:

From August '05: "My posts are intended to deflate the excesses of Karl's and Ian's triumphalism. To head off any straw men, I'm certainly not engaging in the reverse of triumphalism, that is say, an unreasonable defeatism. I'm not arguing that the US is going to suffer a Great Depression, MK. II next year."

From February, 2006: "To me the $64,000.00 question for the year 2006 concerns corporate capital spending. Will companies spend enough to make up for the debt-burdened consumer, especially if compensation keeps falling? I don't know and neither does anyone else. Whether the "landing" in 2006 is hard or soft likely depends on the answer to that question. I'd also love to get inside Bernanke's head to know if he is going to try to "build credibility" with the financial markets by raising rates some more. So no, I'm not saying we're on doomsday's doorstep."

From May '06: "I think we're in a transition period where the expansionary phase of the business cycle is going to start slowly winding down, assuming (and hoping) that Bernanke steers us to a soft landing rather than a bust. For an expansionary period, it was mighty weak compared to past postwar expansions - especially in terms of creating net employment.

What the Kool-Aid Brigade wants us to believe is that Bush's tax cuts are responsible for any good things that have happened but they're wrong. Judging by past expanisions, I think it's safe to say that the tax cuts haven't benefited most Americans and that Greenspan's historically low interest rates, Bush's Keynesian massive government deficit spending, and Asia's willingness to finance our unproductive spending while building their own wealth-building infrastructures have been our real benefactors so far.

The trouble going forward is that neither our low interest rates nor our deficit spending are indefinitely sustainable and the American consumer's deficit spending isn't either now that the housing market has cooled down and housing prices are actually falling in the more speculation-ridden areas and household compensation is falling. Not only that but the Baby Boomers are woefuly unprepared for retirement AND they're a large enough group to make political demands that will make matters worse as they try to make succeeding generations foot the bill for the boomers' lack of enlightened action.

Does all this mean that we'll all be plunged into 90% unemployment or
financial ruin next year? No."

From June '06: "When you look at the big picture, it used to be that the economy was sending very mixed signals. Much to the triumphalists' dismay, for every good piece of leading economic news, there was one bad one. Now the economy has shifted to signalling a definite slowdown with two or three piece of evidence of a slowdown for every one that indicates increased growth ahead. The $64,000 question is now "Will the Fed pay attention to its own preferred economic measures or will Bernanke still feel pressure to prove himself to financial markets as an inflation hawk and risk throwing us into a recession by continuing to raise interest rates?"

From Nov '06: "Finally, I'm not forecasting immediate doom and gloom. I'm not saying we'll have the Great Depression Mk II next year or that we'll all become destitute Chinese debt slaves. I'm more providing a corrective to uncriticial triumphalism than anything else."

Considering that triumphalism was still roaring along well into 3Q06, you should just be a man now and admit that you are wrong.

Hey, just trying to do you a favor by pointing it out. I could've raked you over the coals for it.

 

Bernanke raising rates in 2004? Surely your <sic> referring to Alan Greenspan.

And 2004, 2005, 2006 = year after year, i.e. you were wrong in 2004, 2005, and 2006

Real GDP Growth in 2006 was a healthy 3.4%.

Wrong about what? LOL! You just splunked up two years worth of B.S. analysis and you want me to man up?

 

ratdog,
you think that every single decently informed financier/economist didn't know that higher rates would lead to a slow down in housing? that it would be harder for banks to make money?
you stated something that we all knew would happen.
but we've not hit the catastrophic events that you and your friend Nouriel have predicted, ie a housing crash and a credit crunch. housing has hit it's soft landing, production is being pared back, sales are up, inventories are down, and we've returned to normalcy (and for the record, sales during the 'crash' were at levels higher than 2001/2/3, so not a bad pace at all).
and the banks are having a harder time, yes. but money is more expensive for them to obtain, we all knew they'd be showing signs of slowing down their record earnings pace. the bank I'm at is still churning about huge amounts of $ and we are in no danger of being 'crunched' like you predicted. the only people in any sort of trouble are those dumb enough to expand their sub-prime portfolios at a time we all knew rates would rising.
our economy is expanding. it has been expanding for what, 4.5 years now? your prediction of a slow down is so far off, it is laughable.
tax receipts growing across the board? TRUTH
economy expanding? TRUTH
more people employed than ever before? TRUTH
rising wages? TRUTH
oh yeah, it is horrible.

 

Not true. The median household wage went up slightly, but that was because more women entered the workforce. The individual median wages for men and women dropped (IIRC) around 1.5%.

 

using the median household income statistic doesn't hit on the point of rising wages.
I've seen that stat, and yes, while it is disheartening, i'm still waiting to see conclusive evidence that it is a bad/good thing.
i've seen various trains of thought:
a) more displaced workers are leading to a drop in the median income
b) more immigrants are coming into the workforce at the bottom of the scale, bringing down the median
c) we aren't bringing in as many highly skilled, highly paid immigrants as we were during the tech boom
d) a combination of the three

but i did reference to rising wages. those are the prevailing wages paid to workers year over year. the labour market is tight right now, and those with necessary skills and experience are making a killing.

 

I agree that these all likely play a role, but you can't deny that the loss of union power and the stagnant minimum wage also played roles.

 

those are two things I think you can say also played a part. but the minimum wage wouldn't have too great an affect on the median, $43000/yr earner.

and the loss of union power isn't such a bad thing, depending on your POV. I was just talking to a friend last night who is still in Philly and the transit system, SEPTA, is having funding troubles, as always. so they come out and say, "layoffs are probable". then the union comes right back and says that their members with over 1 yr experience are immune to layoffs due to their contracts. that is crazy. unions aren't a bad thing when it comes to protecting workers rights, I will give them that. but they are horrible in instances such as that, when they play politics over jobs instead of using common sense (but it it also SEPTA's fault for ever agreeing to such a contract with how bad the funding situation always is in Pennsylvania).

 

You're (not "your" ) right. That'll teach me not to proofread. Is this where I say "Obvious proofreading smack is gay"?

Your assertion is at odds with the historical records.

Only because the 1st quarter was a statistical outlier. Since then it's been a little over 2%. Compare that with almost 4% from 1996 through 1999. I thought Bush's tax cuts were supposed to create massive growth. Bush couldn't match the Clinton years even with Greenspan (not Bernanke) dropping rates to 1% and the GOP spending money like drunken sailors.

I showed you what I said and I was right as you can see for yourself from a post of mine from almost excactly a year ago:

"I do not expect everyone's homes to become worthless overnight or that unemployment will be 50% by fall or that China will buy the state of Colorado with all the money we're having to pay them to finance our debt. I do expect consumer spending to slow along with slower growth in the national housing market. A few of the more ridiculously overpriced housing markets might see some deflation and if mortgage rates increase there will be a rise in people going bust because they bought more house than they could really afford. And yes, if the participation rate does not keep going down, I expect to see unemployment edge up as the housing market (which created anywhere between 40% to 50% of the jobs created during this expansion) shed jobs - except in the Gulf states. To me the $64,000.00 question for the year 2006 concerns corporate capital spending. Will companies spend enough to make up for the debt-burdened consumer, especially if compensation keeps falling? I don't know and neither does anyone else. Whether the "landing" in 2006 is hard or soft likely depends on the answer to that question. I'd also love to get inside Bernanke's head to know if he is going to try to "build credibility" with the financial markets by raising rates some more. So no, I'm not saying we're on doomsday's doorstep. I'm just saying that the triumphalist panglossian view is wrong. We could and should have done much better with the opportunity that Greenspan and the economic cycle gave us but Bush blew it"

You can't argue with anything I said there because it's happening rightr before your eyes. I was right not because I'm some kind of genius but because I basically applied run-of-the-mill mainstream economics to the data and got a result not surprisingly close to the consensus which proved correct. In contrast, you (collectively) started with a conclusion driven by partisan politics and tried to shoehorn whatever data you could find that seemed to support your prejudices and ignored everything else.

Now you're screwed because you're locked into your extremist position that we have to have consistently above average growth because we now have lower taxes while I'm free to let the open-ended data and not some predetermined conclusion be my guide and all I have to do is show using uncontroversial mainstream economics to show that you were wrong. You have to account for why the economy is slowing after Bush's tax cuts while I'm free to explain why the economy goes up and why it goes down. Sucks to be you.

Oh, and here's your prediction from November of last year: "Of more interest to me is the recent upswing in builder stocks. Housing might not have hit bottom yet, but barring a total market collapse we are probably getting close." Three months later, that hasn't proven terribly accurate unless you have some definition of "close" that is different from the standard English one. How's your Toll Brothers stock doing these days?

I know they did. I counted on it. Of course, I also counted on you triumphalists NOT knowing it. Which judging by your (collectively) posts, you didn't.

You (collectively) sure didn't give any indication of knowing it until I pointed out why it is a better explanation of economic growth and tax receipts than Bush's tax cuts.

First, define "crash".

Second, I'm not Roubini although I appreciate the dishonest attempt at guilt by association. I said that housing would fall. They have. I said sales would fall. They have. And both things have been dramatic. Look at the charts for new home sales, existing home sales and housing prices. Look at the housing construction firms. Look at the housing sector employment data. Look at permits, look at almost any housing-related statistic for the last year to see the change. And even though housing construction has slowed to a crawl, we still have a housing inventory far above normal to work through.

And all this is going on right as we're heading into a slowing economy. You don't believe the economy is gong to slow? Check out the Fed's own National Activity Index I linked to in this thread. It has a .81 correlation with Real GDP and that's about as high a correlation as you can expect to see in economics. And here's some homework for you: describe for me in your own words the trend line for the YOY percentage change in LEI over the last three years. I double dog dare you.

This is just nonsense based on wishful thinking and an overreliance on extremely volatile short-term data that you haven't sorted through to eliminate the distorting factors like weather, to name but one example. Here's another: the Census Bureau does not account for cancellations of sales contracts when comuting new home sales or home inventories. So they consistently overestimate the number of sales (and also inflate the prices) while underestimating the housing inventory. Cancellations have, of course, surged. This was explained in an article called "The Phantom Rebound in Housing" or something like that on January 7th in the NYT (sorry, you have to be registered to get the link). I highly recommend that you register and find the article.

You'd be surprised at how many banks did just that. Of course, now they're tightening their mortgage standards which is another blow to the housing market! After all, the MBA's MPI has dropped for 5 out of the last 6 weeks.

But, as I said in a recent post in another thread, I don't expect the problems in the subprime market to spill over into, say, commercial lending although the increasing frenzy in LBOs is starting to concern people.

Congrats, you have made the rookie mistake of confusing "slowing" with "contracting". Why am I not surprised? If you were going 50mph and now you're going 10mph, you've still slowed down even though you're not actually going backwards.

Which, again, you can't explain because neither productivity nor real GDP correlate with tax cuts. Real GDP does correlate quite nicely, however, with changes in the Fed Funds Rate.

Economy slowing down? TRUTH

More people than ever before, employed or not? TRUTH

Unemployment rising despite a moribund participation rate? TRUTH

btw, Bush's job growth numbers are still the weakest of any post-WW2 expansion and the best unemployment numbers under his watch will be 4.3% or so while Clinton had us under upper threes. So once again, Bush's tax cuts couldn't even match the Clinton era despite the massive twin stimuli of historically low rates and huge deficit spending.

Falling total compensation (ie. wages plus benefits)? TRUTH

Oh yeah, it's (probably) a soft landing after a slowdown that triumphalists were busy 6 months ago telling us wouldn't happen because Bush's tax cuts were supposed to make us immune to that kind of thing.

But don't worry, wingtips, America still has a booming "housing" industry:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/news21/20070216/ts_news21/private_prisons_expect_a_boom_1

 

<Sigh>

Here are the real GDP growth rates for 2003 - 2006. Feel free to pick out the statistical outliers.

QTR GDP+
--- ----
2003I 1.2%
2003II 3.5%
2003III 7.5%
2003IV 2.7%

2004I 3.9%
2004II 4.0%
2004III 3.1%
2004I 2.6%

2005I 3.4%
2005II 3.3%
2005III 4.2%
2005IV 1.8%

2006I 5.6%
2006II 2.6%
2006III 2.0%
2006IV 3.5%

And I’ve no problem comparing the Clinton/Ginrich era with the current. Bill Clinton instituted huge cuts in capital gains, welfare reform, had Greenspan at the helm, and (with Newts help) kept the growth of government in check. I've no complaints.

 

Which one of the above numbers is the outlier? Come on, it's not that difficult.

Hell, 5.6% (along with 7.5% in 3Q03) would be an outlier for the whole time you posted, let alone just 2006.

Nice own goal, champ.

Except that I said the period from 1996 through 1999 which includes the year before the limited, not "huge", tax cut of 1997 which focused on the middle class and not just the rich and for which reason he got slammed by Reeps. Also, Clinton opposed a 1999 Reep plan for "huge" capital gains tax cuts. And here is Clinton in 2005 on the difference between his cuts and Bush's cuts:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1136801&page=1

Trying to equate Clinton and Bush is just weak. Speaking of weak, let's take a closer look at Bush's expansion numbers and compare them with Clinton's. Here are the yearly real GDP growth numbers during their respective expansions:

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/var/rgdp-annchg

Just to be fair, I'll measure Clinton from 1994, a full three years before the tax cuts, to 1999.

The tale of the tape:

Clinton 94-99: average = 3.89%

Bush 03-06: average = 3.25%

Now if Bush's tax cuts led to all the benefits you claim for them, why is Bush's expansion weaker than Clinton's? And remember, the Fed Funds Rate was being increased from 3.25% in Feb 1992 to 6.00% by Feb 1995 before going back down to 5.25% by Sept 1998 whereas Bush enjoyed 11 cuts in the Fed Funds Rate during 2001 which went to 1.75% by December 2001 and then to 1.00% by June 2003, not making it past 2.00% until November 2004. Bush had to have almost three years of the Fed Funds Rate under 2.00% to even come close to the Clinton expansion! And Bush had to spend like teenage girl with her first credit card. And hear me now believe me later, you don't even want to go into the topics of job creation and unemployment.

Obviously, some factors other than tax cuts are needed to explain not only the Bush expansion but also why it was so weak. I wonder what those factors could be...

 

yes, we all know the Bush expansion doesn't have the exact same rate of growth as Clinton's. while bush's has been fueled by lower tax rates and low interest rates, clinton's was lead by a technological explosion of which he had no hand in creating.
and in reference to your other post: I never said that we wouldn't see a slow down in housing. I never said that we wouldn't see all the effects of that bubble that we are seeing. but lets not confuse a 'crash' with returning to normalcy after a bubble period. just like the market dot com 'crash', the market simply returned to normalcy. when looking at the long term, if you had bought a house in 1995 in SanFran/NYC/anywhere but Detroit, you've seen your home price rise considerably. yes, it may have dropped inside the last year, but you've still seen 70% appreciation over the 12 years. Just like with the dot com crash--those who invested in 1995 have still seen an AVERAGE rate of return of 12% over the twelve years. Yeah, they didn't have as much money in 2002 as they had in 2001, but they were still ahead.

 

Bush's expansion was fueled by low interest rates (which he had no hand in creating) and government deficit spending which he certanly did have a hand in but which was irresponsible given his tax cuts and he pissed it away in Iraq rather than invest here at home thus making the beneficial effects of his spending very short-term.

I went out of my way to say "collectively". I respect your argument that we need to do more to build and maintain a skilled workforce since the market can't do it, but then you try to avoid pointing out that it is exactly Bush and the GOP who via tax cuts and spending who have resolutely refused to make that happen. I can't be bothered to go back and search all your posts for the past two years to pick out all your mistakes and misstatements, but your work here is fairly representative of the panglossian stuff you've consistently tried to foist on us:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=303078&highlight=employment+participation+rate

Except that, to use your dot bomb analogy, you're trying to make claim normalcy in 2001. We're emphatically not back to normal yet. We'll get there eventually, but we're not there now and when we do get back to normal, that improvement will have nothing to do with tax cuts.

So you're saying we live on deficit spending and artificial asset bubbles forever? I highly doubt that.

Anyway, your argument assumes that you:

1) don't want to live in your house which may be true for people who are retiring now and moving to condos or retirement homes but it is of absolutely no value to anyone looking to BUY a house.

2) you haven't also borrowed to the hilt against your house. And that's the problem because people have been doing that as their house's value has increased. And they'll have to pay that back when their collateral is'nt worth as much as it was. Oops. Of course, if homeowners HADN'T taken on so much debt, consumer spending would have looked really bad and Bush's expansion would have been even weaker that it was.

 

Oh bullsht.

 

Finally, some common ground!

The only reason I brought this up was you originally ignored the 3Q03 spike yet singled out 1Q06. In reality the rest of 2006 provided moderate, healthy economic growth and 2006 was a good year. And lets be honest, the Fed began tightening in Q1 2004, not the end of 2005 as you suggest.

TBH, I’m happy with both those growth rates. But to claim the Bush rally is all easy money belies the facts. Look at the Reagan era, he inherited a Fed rate in the high teens and an economy mired in stagflation!

 

Because I was responding to your assertion specifically about 2006. you said nothing about any other year.

I never said it was only easy money. It was easy money and massive Keynesian government deficit spending.

What happened during the Reagan era is so completely different than now, it's unbelievable. And, as has been discussed ad nauseum before, you have Volcker to thank for saving us by outflanking the Reaganites' self-contradictory economic policies that were making things worse, not anything Reagan himself did.

[edit]OK, I went back and found the thread where Ted tried to cliam that Reagan's tax cuts created economic nirvana. Here is what I said then:

"No matter how you slice it, though, Reagan was forced to flip flop on his promised tax cuts because even he and his advisors -with gentle coaching from the Fed - realized their policies were self-contradicting, inflationary and wouldn't work. You can debate about how much of a reversal Reagan was forced to make (I think it was bigger than his fanboys want to admit) but you can't argue that he, like GHWB after him, was forced to eat whatever amount of crow.

Once Volcker had figured out that monetarism was a disaster and then used more traditional methods to tame inflation and Reagan's inflationary policies by jacking up interest rates (and thereby causing the deep recession that plagued Reagan's first years in office and whose political consequences were part of what led him to start his inflationary policies) all under the guise of "monetarism", he promptly drove down interest rates from 16% in 1981 down to 9% by 1983 and flooded the country with money in late 1982 and a few months later in 1983 the US economy exploded - because of the Fed's economic stimulus. Volcker raised rates to 10% in 1984 to curb the growth he'd created and then began a more or less orderly decrease of interest rates until he left the Fed in 1987 with interest rates being about 6%. This whipsaw act from 1980 through 1983 caused economic chaos but it did restore normality after which real GDP growth trended downwards until the early 1990s. You can get GDP charts here to see the dramatic whipsaw and then more gradual decline in real GDP on pages 3 and 4 of this source:

http://205.232.165.149/public/gdp_c.pdf

Of course, people who don't know anything about the economy in the 1980s might believe the right-wing snake oil that Reagan somehow caused the dramatic 1983 boomlet through his tax cuts but once the proper economic context is provided you can see for yourself how silly that nonsense is. Reagan's tax cuts also failed to curb the decreasing trend in wage and salary growth that has begun in 1978 and continued through 1992. Real income growth also markedly decreased from the end temporary blip of 1983 until 1992. Meanwhile the CPI increased from 1989 to 1991 and unemployment rose from about 5.5% in 1987 to 7.5% in 1992. So for Reagan's second term and GHWB's presidency most Americans were losing ground economically which eventually helped cost GHWB re-election. And Reeps can't blame the Fed for this because the Fed under Volcker and then Greenspan was busy lowering rates from 1984 until 1993 when the Fed funds rate reached 3%."

As another aside, here is what Mankiw has to say about the Reagan tax cuts and tax revenue: "When Reagan cut taxes after he was elected, the result was less revenue, not more." (Principles of Economics, p. 166.)

Finally, oddly enough, when you look at real GDP, Carter's numbers are better than Reagan's, except for the spectacular outlier of 1984.

 

The housing index started increasing again this year

http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=529

 

What were you guys saying again about the "surprising growth" of the economy?

 

I think the market yesterday showed how confident we are...

 

Looks like Mr. Bubble has been reading my posts:

http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/070227/28112_id.html?.v=1

And what was wingtips1 saying about the housing market now being back to normal?

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/28/news/economy/newhome_sales/index.htm?postversion=2007022815

"I sort of always knew that late last year our numbers were boosted by unusually warm weather and we paid some of that back in January," said Seiders (chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders). But he also conceded that the report showed continued and widespread weakness, despite hopes late last year that the market could be stabilizing.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/27/news/economy/homesales/index.htm?postversion=2007022711

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/28/news/companies/home_depot/index.htm

 

The title of the thread becomes more incorrect with recent events. One of the major problems is that the major banks' reserve to cover for borrowers that default is way too low. As they try to increase the reserve they have less to invest and loan resulting in less growth.

 

you obviously are chosing to ignore the reports that existing home sales were up 3.0% (which make up more than 80% of the sales market)...typical blinders.