 Check your home's current value at Cyberhomes.com |
Home prices in the United States fell 11.4% last month, the worst drop since Standard & Poors began tracking them in 1987. A broader composite of cities shows home prices falling 10.7%, the first time both indices have ever fallen by double digits.
I checked my home on Cyberhomes and found it has dropped $22,770 just last month. I don't know about you, but I can't make that up by turning down the thermostat to the point where I turn blue.
Cyberhomes says my home would sell today for between $179,091 - $228,838, so the drop reflects what Standard & Poor's is reporting. Since I am 63 and have hopes of retiring someday without being forced to dine exclusively on dog food, losing more than a tenth of the value of my major asset is disconcerting, to say the least.
Pocketbook politics means me even more upset with the Clinton's continuing ego quest to win the nomination for Hillary at any cost.
David Brook's column in the New York Times today says that Hillary's 10% chance of winning the nomination is now down to 5%. Given the choice between McCain, who admits he's no good on the economy, and Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill apparently have no qualms about conducting a scorched-earth campaign that risks handing McCain a victory in the fall.
On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC this morning, Chris Matthews proposes that the Clintons would prefer a one-term McCain presidency to a possible two-term Obama presidency, if Hillary cannot get the nomination this time. Matthews is suggesting that the Clintons are so ruthless that they will do whatever they can to set up Hillary for the next time, if she cannot win this time, even if it means electing a Republican in the fall.
Now that's Hardball.
And that's reprehensible.
And it must be stopped before the bottom completely falls out of my home's value.
It's time for Howard Dean et al in the Democratic Party to find a way to put a stake through the heart of the Clinton candidacy at the end of the primary season in June, at the latest. Waiting until the convention in August is a surefire way to weaken the Democratic candidate to the point of unelectability.
Guiding the U.S. economy through the dangerous shoals of a falling dollar, a ballooning trade deficit, continuing losses in manufacturing jobs and dramatic rises in energy and food prices, on top of the crisis in housing, requires focusing on what the candidates propose to do about the economy.
Yes, I know Hillary embellished the dangers she faced in Tuzla a dozen years ago. But, as Dick Cheney would say, So? It's time for the media to stop trafficking in trivia, even when today's news benefits my guy.
Before the housing market collapses completely, let's get back on track and start talking about what government can do to turn this around, other than bailing out the big boys on Wall Street, while fobbing me off with $600 I will have to wait months to collect.
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