Doom friend OSO and I belong to similar religious denominations, although he characterizes himself an evangelical, and I see myself as a sort of liberal (within the fold this is a fraught distinction, but would be pretty hard to explain to most Doomers). Anyway, a recent Wall Street spirituality moment has evidently weirded both of us out.  I’m going to tee up the discussion by reflecting on this snippet from Wikipedia (the image just below and at the bottom are borrowed from the article): In every Mithraic temple, the place of honor was occupied by a tauroctony, a representation of…
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A big hat tip for M who sent me this story with the comment, "This is a very bad idea."    He’s understating the situation. A large number of Phoenix-area homeowners facing foreclosure have received a reprieve. Bank of America, which last summer bought the nation’s largest subprime lender, Countrywide, has suspended foreclosure notices pending against nearly 2,000 homes across the Valley in the past week in an effort to help homeowners hold on to their property. And relief for even more homeowners is expected to follow. Why would Bank of America make a move like this?  They have to…
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I haven’t posted on the Phoenix home sales report released by Jay Butler of ASU’s Realty Studies for awhile.  Butler changed his methodology separating trustee sales from foreclosures sales in May.  That was a great move on Butler’s part and provides a more accurate picture of the Phoenix housing market.  It does however, make it rough to compare current numbers using the new methodology  to the old ones.  As trustee sales have historically been a small part of the sales figures, we’ll compare "traditional" sales with old numbers, excluding foreclosures unless stating otherwise. Let me know if this doesn’t make…
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