There were apparently a lot of people who didn’t think that Cramer was serious yesterday.  So today on The Street he says  "Just default- – it makes huge economic sense." Transcript below.

I keep seeing comments like this time and again: The Phoenix-area rental market is strong, with rents heading upward. Or like this from Businessweek, [via MSN] Fewer homes are selling because of volatile prices and subprime uncertainties, pushing up rents from San Francisco to Baltimore. Generally I see these comments from the folks that want to see sideliners back in the game, assuring us that with rents going up and home prices going down, it only makes sense to buy. Let’s consider something here though.  Fewer buyers means more unsold homes.  When sellers can’t or won’t lower prices, what do…
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Cramer gets religion- You’ll love this one: Edit: Updated to use a new source.

Tom Peters said, "If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention." If he hadn’t already thought of that one, somebody commenting on the markets last week could have had a first. Still, we’re heading into August, when the Wall Street A-team heads for the beach and the hills, come what may. This morning’s calm could well be the calm before the calm.

Can We Afford the War We Want? – IPartial Transcript of AEI Seminar "Can We Afford the Military We Need?" "Someday this war’s gonna end …"               Calculated Risk commenter AllenM’s signature line, borrowed from Apocalypse Now (1979) For many years, this blogger has felt that the greatest threats to the security of the Western world were economic, not political. Others have shared this concern. For example, MarketWatch’s Paul B. Farrell recently summed up [1] the difficulty as follows. "Foreign banks are dumping dollar reserves, while we gorge on cheap toys and bad pet food. Actually, our biggest "terrorist" threat is internal:…
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Here’s what happens when demand is gone and developers are out of money:

DOOM – August 7, 2006 … To a certain extent,[1] Fannie’s QSPE adventure so far has been a largely academic accounting event. More graphically, perhaps it’s like a military training exercise where the referee (the accountants and regulators) judged Fannie not to have “died” in the course of this story. They have passed a positive judgement on Fannie’s “readiness”, but the real war is about to begin. Fannie’s QSPEs provide a bulwark (like a system of levees) against a real surge of defaults. The nation wide house price declines predicted by Goldman Sachs will most likely provide just such a…
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You know that mantra "Nobody Saw This Coming"? Fugeddaboutit! Let’s crack open the kindling box and have a look at The Chattanoogan for July 29, 2006.[1] HOUSE prices are set to drop in the US for the first time on record, US investment bank Goldman Sachs warned this weekend. Prices in several segments of the market have already started to fall, and the overall market will move into the red even in nominal terms next year, fuelling fears that this will trigger a downturn in consumer spending and hit an already slowing US economy. “The risk is rising that nominal…
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In August 2006, Doom started reporting on "Vacantvilles" in the Phoenix SE Valley.  Yesterday the Arizona Republic reported that  new homes aren’t the only ones sitting empty: Increasing numbers of newer Chandler homes are being abandoned by cash-strapped owners, leaving weeds, green pools and headaches for neighbors and city officials."It’s scaring me," neighborhood services Sgt. Greg Carr said of the trend. "We’re trying to figure out how we can approach this, who do we call when homeowners walk away and we can’t find them?" Carr doesn’t have statistics but said home foreclosures are rising and along with them code violations….
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“Can We Afford the Military We Need?” was a seminar held at the American Enterprise Institute on June 26, 2007. This is an unauthorized, unannotated transcript covering the first 82 minutes of the 2 hour AEI event. For background and interpretation, please refer to the Housing Doom post “Can We Afford the War We Want?” (July 30, 2007). ________________________ Kevin Hassett [0:00:00]: If folks could finish grabbing their muffins and take their seats we can begin the program. This is … we’re gathered here to discuss “Can We Afford the Military We Need.” I’m Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Policy…
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Some years ago when I was down in Mexico working on my  masters thesis, I would periodically watch a "telenovela" [Spanish for soap opera] called "Los Ricos También Lloran" [The Rich Cry Too] That title came to mind when I read about the subprime problems of United Capital CEO John Devaney in an article from The Street by Mark DeCambre: TheStreet.com has learned that the hedge fund manager has put one of his most prized possessions — a 142-foot Trinity yacht dubbed Positive Carry — up for sale, along with his $16.5 million second-home in Aspen, Colo. The house, called…
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It’s been a rough week.  According to Yahoo Finance:  [Thanks L!] New homes, used homes; it makes no difference — the housing market is stuck in a funk that shows no sign of lifting, and more homeowners are getting in a bind. and Concern about the housing market helped push stock markets lower on Thursday, and is spilling over into other areas such as auto sales, according to business leaders. [Graph from E-Trade]

  Q: What do you get when you cross a tiger with a parrot? A: I don’t know, but when it talks, you better listen. Since mid May, Doom has been following the Thursday Reuters reports on net buys by foreign central banks of US debt obligations, treasuries and agency debt. Last week [28] the agencies performance beat the treasuries by over $21 billion. It’s certainly a strong signal, but does it actually mean anything?  [update: Twist did her chart magic overnight and I'm now adding her graphical contribution -- Thanks!]  

The following is part of a statement released by Aaron Krowne of Implode-O-Meter yesterday: Judge Franklin R. Taft has issued a tentative decision denying Ml-implode’s (defendants Aaron Krowne and Krowne Concepts, Inc.) motion to strike Loan Center of California’s suit according to California’s "Anti-SLAPP" statute. The public-concern argument is affirmed; however, Judge Taft believes "much of the information is in the defendant’s own words", and do not constitute "an index". We find this ruling disappointing—and frankly, puzzling. Simply examining the record of the web page at the time of the alleged offense reveals that the specific "post" regarding LCC consisted…
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The word for today is DOWN.  You don’t really need another adjective to describe the market this morning- Beazer is reporting losses, DR Horton is reporting losses, Pulte is reporting losses, and as for new home sales, "down" pretty much covers it.   [Thanks for the links L!] According to the Commerce Department this morning: Sales of new one-family houses in June 2007 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 834,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 6.6 percent (±11.0%)* below the revised May rate…
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