I invariably look for a single theme when I want to write about macro headlines. Today I can't find one. Here are my random thoughts on a bunch of hot items.
New home sales go down the tubes after Uncle Sam decides to stop handing out free coupons to would-be flippers. So many homebuyers wanted to bring back 2004, and now we're going to repeat 2008. Yeah, thanks a bunch.
Speaking of homes going south, Fannie Mae is going to have its hands full cracking down on all those deadbeats who just finished using up those homebuying tax credits. Maybe they can hire all the people who will soon be let go from Census headcounting jobs and use them to nail foreclosure notices to front doors. In many cases they'll probably nail notices to their own doors.
Chinese auditors appear to be more honest and prescient than than their European counterparts about the danger of debt overload. More honest, but probably not more intelligent. We'll know they've gained on the West in the intellect department when they stop funding U.S. federal deficits.
The U.S. financial reform bill is about to become a paper airplane, bearing as much resemblance to real regulatory improvement as a paper airplane bears to a real jumbo jet. If it's any consolation to my concerned readers (all three of them), Europe isn't having much more luck enacting its own regulatory improvements. The Bilderbergers are about to win another round against reform as their Sitges consensus takes hold among decisionmakers. What was that consensus? Did you miss it? It was the realization that "the dark side of the welfare state" allowed freedom to "people with incomes." That's the kind of threat that keeps your average aristocrat hitting the scotch.
Hey, maybe I found a single theme after all - stupidity! That's such a common theme nowadays that I'm at risk of overusing it.
