Life's Been Good -- Joe Walsh I nominate today's featured song as the ode to The Great Housing Bubble. If you drank the kool aid, I mean really drank the kool aid (like today's owner), life must have been very good. All this free money allowing you to do whatever you want whenever you want. Life must have been very good to those who lived off their houses. There is nothing wrong with living well, a...

Losing My Religion -- REM Wikipedia defines faith as "a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that has not been proven." Religious faith is a collection of beliefs based on ideas which are neither testable or provable. If you accept the core beliefs of a religion on faith, you generally get a feeling of peace and well being that serves to reinforce the "correctness" of the acceptance of faith. M...

Deadhead -- Devin Townsend Our market is experiencing wave after wave of pain. Will the owners endure, or will they give in and sell? It depends on the circumstances and the constitution of each owner, but those with little to lose are giving up without much of a fight, and they are passing the pain on to the lenders. Today's featured property is a classic illustration of kool aid intoxication and...

Three weeks ago in the open thread of 6-28-2008, I suggested that maybe oil would top and the market would bottom. It is too early to tell if this weeks market action saw both of those occurences, but both of these markets have certainly put in a short-term top and bottom. Only time will tell if it lasts longer. Calculated Risk had an interesting post this week on the economy. In it, he suggests th...

Aggravation Plantation -- Brown Brigade Declining home values are a source of great aggravation to homeowners, but it is even more aggravating to the lenders. The lenders are the ones really losing in the deal. At one time, I had believed that the pain of loss might actually put and end to the crazy beliefs of kool aid intoxication. Unfortunately, since it the lenders who are enduring most of the p...