Andy Sutton submits:
Wall Street doubled over in anguish yesterday as the latest numbers on existing home sales hit the news wires. I must say that I am totally confused as to why the decline was any kind of surprise, however. The mainstream press dutifully expressed every emotion from grief to even outrage as the number was reported and analyzed.
Most people have quickly forgotten that the biggest reason there were so many sales to begin with was due to the fact that Congress had waded into yet another market and propped it up with cash on the barrelhead for anyone willing to take the leap. When they lured all the first time buyers they could, they took the next logical step and offered the cash to pretty much everyone else. Couple those actions with the Fed’s active (and now passive) buying of mortgage backed securities and it was bubble mania all over again. Until it wasn’t. That point came at the end of April, when the tax cuts were mercifully allowed to expire, saving our children and grandchildren untold billions.
