"CBS Nightly News" on August 24 highlights housing crisis
The lead story on "CBS Nightly News" on 24 August 2010 was on the housing crisis and began
The steep falloff in housing sales -- which reached a 15-year low in July -- highlights the degree to which the government has been propping up the housing market, and the two biggest pillars of that support system -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are facing a crisis.
Meanwhile, the WSJ ran a story Plunge in Home Sales Stokes Economy Fears which included
Sales of previously owned homes fell 27.2% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said 24 August 2010, the lowest level since the industry group started its tally in 1999.
(...)
The renewed worry about housing comes as economists downgrade their forecasts for the economy this year and early next year. Traditionally, the housing sector, along with purchases of durable goods such as furniture, would help pull the economy out of a recession as lower interest rates spurred higher demand. But this time, potential home buyers either don't have the jobs or savings to jump in or are wary of another decline in the market.
"Consumers and housing are in no position to lead us out," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight. "We've gone through the inventory-cycle boost. The stimulus boost is fading. We're falling back on whatever underlying strength there is in the private sector, in exports and business-equipment spending, and there's not a lot."
Neither CBS nor the WSJ was talking about innovation leading us out of the current
crunch.
The steep falloff in housing sales -- which reached a 15-year low in July -- highlights the degree to which the government has been propping up the housing market, and the two biggest pillars of that support system -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are facing a crisis.
Meanwhile, the WSJ ran a story Plunge in Home Sales Stokes Economy Fears which included
Sales of previously owned homes fell 27.2% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said 24 August 2010, the lowest level since the industry group started its tally in 1999.
(...)
The renewed worry about housing comes as economists downgrade their forecasts for the economy this year and early next year. Traditionally, the housing sector, along with purchases of durable goods such as furniture, would help pull the economy out of a recession as lower interest rates spurred higher demand. But this time, potential home buyers either don't have the jobs or savings to jump in or are wary of another decline in the market.
"Consumers and housing are in no position to lead us out," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight. "We've gone through the inventory-cycle boost. The stimulus boost is fading. We're falling back on whatever underlying strength there is in the private sector, in exports and business-equipment spending, and there's not a lot."
Neither CBS nor the WSJ was talking about innovation leading us out of the current
crunch.
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 7:50 PM
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