"Why don't you move back into your own house," his father wanted to know.

"Dad, I've got a good tenant in there. Besides, it's not in very good shape. I'd rather sell it than invest more money in it. And there are so many places on the market, I can rent something better. Even after a big drop in prices it is still cheaper to rent than it is to buy something."

There are probably millions of homeowners who would like to sell - if they could. This hidden inventory of unsold houses will depress housing prices for a long time.

But there's a crisis coming in commercial real estate too.

"An extreme amount of commercial debt is to mature over the coming years," writes real estate investor George Karahalios in Marc Faber's Gloom, Doom and Boom Report. "And unlike the residential market, there is no safety net (Fannie Mae) for commercial loans. Instead investors must rely on financing through commercial banks, a few insurance companies, and other private lenders who now demand much higher interest rates and more equity for the risk associated with these investments. Thus, not even the Fed's printing presses can save commercial property prices, and I am expecting certain locations to crash, perhaps falling as much as 50-80% from the peak."

So you see, dear reader, there is bad news ahead - a lot of it. Stocks will go down. Gold will go down too - most likely - when people realize that the economy faces a long, deflationary depression...not a period of inflationary growth.

But while stocks are fair weather friends, gold sticks by you in foul weather too. Right now, gold is rising on good news. Eventually, it will soar when the news turns bad. (Though...not necessarily right away...)

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• The Housing Slump Has Fattened the Inventory of Unsold Homes
• Commercial Real Estate May Be the Next to Fall
• Trends Make Investors Less Afraid of Risk
• Ireland Going Through Same De-leveraging Process as the US
• Housing Prices Follow GDP Growth and Inflation

Know what that means? It means the "Age of Thrift" is here...and that consumers really are cutting back - just like we said they would.

And it means that the consumer economy is not going to return to robust growth anytime soon. And it means, too, that people will find it hard to find jobs for a very long time.

Another thing it means is that housing prices are not likely to recover - not in our lifetimes. That was a once-a-century bubble and it has blown up.

Mortgage lenders say they expect the peak in foreclosures to come about a year from now. As for the bottom of price declines, you can expect that in 2013 or beyond. A housing bubble typically takes prices down for six years, says a study by professors Reinhart and Rogoff. But this was not a typical bubble; it was an extraordinary bubble. Seems logical that the correction will be extraordinarily deep and long too.

And it also means that this stock market rally is very vulnerable. The stock market and the economy seem to be reading different newspapers!

The Dow fell 14 points yesterday. It could begin a major drop any day. That's why our 'Crash Alert' flag is flying from our London headquarters.

Yesterday, we reported the curious fact that consumer spending as a percentage of the GDP had increased. But it only increased because the other parts of the GDP - notably business spending and investment - fell off even faster.

With output falling...sales falling...and investment (in new plant and equipment) falling even faster...who's going to hire new workers? Not many companies. And which companies are going to invest in young workers...who will have to be trained - sometimes over a period of many years - before they are really productive? Not many.

It's the "Lost Generation," says BusinessWeek. Unemployment nationwide is officially 9.8%. But for young people the rate is nearly twice that level - at 18%.

Their elders aren't doing so well either.

"Baby boomers working longer hours, for less," says a Financial Times headline. What do you expect? Their currency is going down in value. Their customers are disappearing. Their retirement savings disappeared with housing prices. They can't even borrow money anymore.

David Rosenberg:

"Now that lenders have started to respond to their record-high delinquency rates by rationing credit, a mad scramble for cash is occurring to replace the loans - food stamp usage is up 22% year-over- year, pawn shop business is up nearly 40%, and there is a tidal wave of applications for Social Security disability benefits that are not explained alone by workplace mishaps."

Boomers have no choice. They need money. So they work harder, and longer. And they get paid less. Why? Because prices are falling. Even the price of labor. It's a deflationary world.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports, "China consolidates its lead in global trade."

This headline is a little like the announcement that consumer spending is a bigger part of the economy. It might lead you to think that global trade is growing - or, at least that the Chinese part of global trade is growing. Not at all! Global trade is still shrinking. Chinese exports too. It's just that China's part of the global marketplace is increasing...because America and Europe are losing market share. China is gaining market share because it competes on price. And price competition is what is driving this market.

No discount? No sale!

Power and wealth are shifting east. No doubt about it. The Chinese took over the Hummer this week. And they are even building a 'big plane' - the C919 - to compete against Boeing and Airbus.

Is there any business they can't compete in? We don't know...but we're counting on them to stay out of financial publishing at least until we retire!

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• If Americans Do Not Return to Work, There Is No Recovery
• Bear Markets Do Not End With Stocks Still Trading at Nearly 20 Times Earnings
• Stock Prices Down Signals Bears to Hold onto Cash, Treasuries and Gold
• Economy Has to Grow at 1% to Stay Even With Population Growth
• We Expect No Recovery from the Economy

October is almost half over. Will we get through the month without a major sell-off?

Dear reader, if you think we know the answer to that you've got us mixed up with someone else. Someone who is crazy.

No one with his wits about him thinks he knows what the stock market is going to do.

Still, here at The Daily Reckoning, we have our hunches. We think it's time for a major pull back. Frankly, we'll be disappointed if we don't get one soon. Because, once again stocks are too expensive.

Too expensive for what? Too expensive for the circumstances.

The Dow rose another 20 points yesterday to a new bounce record. Oil rose to over $73. Gold didn't budge.

Of course, everyone now knows that the recession is over. NABE interviewed 44 economic forecasters. Four-fifths of them said the recession was over.

But we don't care what they said. These are the same seers who missed the biggest single event in financial history. There are many banking crises, recessions, panics and defaults in the record books. But none were as great as the one that hit September a year ago. Most economists didn't see it coming; why should we trust them to tell us when it is going?

Besides they've got the whole thing wrong. It isn't a recession; it's a depression. There is no recovery from a depression; instead, the economy has to re-invent itself in another form. Things aren't going 'back to normal,' in other words. Because the period leading up to the crisis was not 'normal;' it was a bubble. After a bubble explodes, you have a lot of debris to clean up. The bigger the bubble, the more damage it does when it blows up.

"The force of a correction is equal and opposite to the deception that preceded it."

You've heard our dictum before. In fact, you've heard our explanations for all these points before.

We just lived through the biggest bubble in history. Get ready for the biggest bust. Not just two years of falling stock prices and news- making bailouts. Not just 10% unemployment. Not just 100 bank failures and 30% off housing prices.

Noooo... We're talking about a worthy correction...a real correction...a noble and distinguished correction...a correction that can hold its head up in public.

This is a correction that will take many years...one that will knock housing prices down for at least five years...and stock prices down to the point where people no longer want to buy them. It's a correction that goes deep enough and continues long enough to do its work - wiping out the bad investments and mistakes of the Bubble Era, while allowing the survivors to pay down their debts and build up their savings.

Now, here's a confusing little item. Yesterday's news tells us that consumer spending as a percentage of the entire economy has edged up to 71%. Now wait just one cotton-pickin' minute. How could consumer spending be going up?

Hold on, cupcake. It's not going up. It's going down. It's just that the other components of the economy are going down even more.

In the second quarter consumers spent $195 billion less than they did the year before - a 1.9% drop. In the 20 years before that, consumer spending increased at an average rate of 3.3%. So, you do the math... that's an about-face of more than 5% of GDP - a loss to the economy of about $700 billion!

Consumer credit is going down (we reported the figures earlier in the week)...unemployment is going up...consumer spending is going down...

..those are not the circumstances in which stocks sell for 27 times earnings...and move higher. Those are the circumstances in which stocks crash.

David Rosenberg:

"By some measures, the S&P 500 is already trading at valuation levels that would ordinarily be consistent with an economic expansion that is five-years old as opposed to a recovery that, at best, is in its infancy stages.

"On an operating ('scrubbed') basis, the trailing P/E multiple on the S&P 500 has expanded a massive 10 points from the March lows, to stand at 27.6x. Historically, when the economy is taking the turn away from contraction towards expansion, which indeed was the case in Q3, the trailing P/E multiple is 15x or half what it is... While we will not belabor the point, when all the write-downs are included, the trailing P/E on 'reported' earnings just widened to its highest levels in recorded history of nearly 140x, which is three times the levels prevailing during the height of the tech bubble."

So, here goes...yes...today, we are officially running our "Crash Alert" flag up the pole here at the London headquarters of The Daily Reckoning. Cross Blackfriars Bridge and you might see if flapping in the wind, between the two huge gold balls on the roof.

Our Crash Alert flag is out because stocks have become too expensive...and because this bounce should be reaching its apogee by now. Already, central banks are talking about cutting back on their efforts to sustain the bounce with easy credit. Australia led the way last week with a rate hike.

It is also becoming clearer and clearer that the feds' efforts aren't really working. They can give money to their friends in the banking industry. They can give money to speculators who then make bets on the stock market, among other things. They can bailout major companies. But they can't really get much money into the real economy.

Au contraire; they take money OUT of the real economy. The feds will absorb $700 billion of private savings this year alone...to finance their deficit. They expect $1 trillion deficits at least for another 10 years. That won't leave much money for the private sector.

Naturally, Washington, DC, is doing well. While unemployment is near 10% in the rest of the nation, it's only about 6% in the Washington area.

But let's face it... What's good for Washington is bad for the rest of the nation. The feds have used this correction to increase their power...and add to their wealth. The average federal employee now earns twice as much as his counterpart in the private sector - if the fellow in the private sector has a job at all.

A news item tells us that TARP recipients spent $114 million lobbying for their bailout money - most of it going into Washington, of course.

And the feds now own major stakes in what used to be the private sector - insurance, automobiles, and banking industries.

This has been a great period for government. Money, power...it is all floating down the Potomac like raw sewage...and coming to rest in the capitol city.

Our advice to the feds: enjoy it while you can. When stocks fall again...and people figure out what a mess you've made of the economy...you'll be lucky if you aren't tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Economists Agreed the Stimulus Was Working and the Recession Was Coming to an End
• Household Debt Represents Spending Taken From the Future
• Feds’ Plan is to Reflate the Economy
• Debt Built Up to Levels Even Obama Says Are “Unsustainable”
• A Battle Between a Natural Market correction and an Artificial Attempt to Avoid it

Painting is a fairly relaxing occupation. You can do it while thinking about other things. Rolling the walls or cutting in the corners, some men might think of going hunting...or playing golf. We try to figure out what is going on in the world economy. For these are remarkable times we live in. We see what is happening...pretty much what we expected. But we're not sure where it leads.

Readers may have noticed a shift in our thinking recently. Well, you can blame latex. As we were painting in the billiard room we began to see that governments are more incompetent than even we had realized. They can't create inflation on demand. A few months ago, we were preparing for inflation...even hyperinflation. Now...we're not so sure. The depression and the Chinese vigilantes may hold off inflation...even for years.

Does this mean you should sell your gold? Well...we wouldn't go that far. Even in the Great Depression gold and gold mining stocks rose in price. And the one and only sure thing is that the world monetary system is dangerously unstable. We'd hold gold until it settles down. Just don't count on getting rich from it in the short-term.

Here's another reason housing prices are going down: housing priorities are changing. Baby Boomers are entering a phase in their lives when people typically escape from urban/suburban centers in favor of small towns and rural areas. If this pattern continues, it will mean a big shift of population, say the experts.

Remember, it's what you do, who you do it with, and where you do it that counts. By the time a person reaches middle age, the first question is usually settled...the second is often in doubt...and the third is actively being considered. That is, few people begin a new career after the age of 50...but it seems like more and more decide they might want to try life with a new partner.

"I can't imagine it," said Elizabeth. "It just seems like too big an adjustment. It took me a quarter century to get used to you. I don't know if I could get used to someone else...

"On the other hand, it might be fun to try..."

Well, for whatever reason, it seems like people are changing partners - even at a rather advanced stage in life. And as for the where to live - it's a question on practically every Baby Boomer's mind.

"I just got tired of living in the city," said a man who spent his entire career in Paris. "Just too much hassle. I'd rather visit occasionally than live there."

Our friend has moved to the country not far from here. He has set up a small woodworking shop in a garage and happily spends his time making chairs and tables. When his house is full of them, he'll probably have to give them to friends and relatives.

"It's much nicer living out here than in the city," says another friend. "And much cheaper. You can buy a whole house for half the cost of an apartment in town...and then you don't have to pay for parking...you can raise chickens and vegetables...and you can even heat with wood, if you want. You don't really have to spend much money at all.

"And the quality of life is higher. Small towns are more friendly. They're prettier...usually. They're easier. So they're perfect for people who are retired.

"And here in France, there's another phenomenon. When people retire, they want to go back to where they came from. Usually, they have a house they inherited from parents or grandparents. So, they leave the apartment in Paris to their children, who are just building their careers. And they retire to the country. It's not a bad way to live."

Until next time,

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Painting for Good Money
• Tell Us What Questions You Want Answered in the DR
• Where Bill Bonner Invests His Money
• Nixon and Exchanging Dollars for Gold
• A Flock of Sheep Without a Shepherd

The markets are actually pretty quiet today. After battling for the better part of three months to get back in the black for the year, the Dow Jones Industrials fell 186 points in New York. We're not saying the Dow can't hold the ground it's gained. But consolidating those gains against the onslaught of more asset deflation is going to take a lot of defence.

And there's a twist today. You may be surprised with this twist, given how we've been pounding the table about the risk in U.S. Treasury bonds. We think that risk is very real and not likely to go away anytime soon, given the $3.25 trillion the U.S. will have to borrow this year. But you should pay close attention to this twist because it may explain the action in the markets for the next few months.

The twist is this: you may soon see RISING U.S. bond prices and a stronger U.S. dollar accompanied by FALLING stock and commodity prices. Yes yes, it's a complete reversal of recent trends. And it doesn't mean we are reversing ourselves about the long-term trends. But you cannot remain Orthodox if the facts change. So allow us to explain why this might happen.

Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told journalists yesterday that the U.S. dollar is in "good shape." He added that, "It's too early to speak of an alternative [to the U.S. dollar]." These remarks came after Chinese and Russian officials have quite publicly suggested that the world's financial system would benefit from using a currency that wasn't being run by a bunch of inflationistas in America.

But the dilemma for the large dollar holders of the world-Japan, Russia, and China to name a few-is how frankly they should speak in public what everyone knows in private. By blowing the whistle on the Fed's inflationary monetary policy, dollar holders penalise themselves. After all, the rise in oil this year and the fall in U.S. bond prices are both directly related to the perceived weakness of the U.S. dollar-a face pointed out quite publicly by officials in Japan, Russia, and China.

The lesson? There's a price to pay for rightly pointing out that a huge supply of Treasury bonds threatens the credit rating of the U.S. That price is paid by owners of dollar denominated assets. Yesterday's remarks by Kudrin, then, should be seen for what they are: a hasty retreat by dollar holders to stem the fall in their investments by reassuring other investors that everything is fine.

In the meantime, you can bet that those same dollar holders are working behind the scenes to find alternatives to the greenback and, of course, to diversify their currency reserves into other currencies or tangible assets. It's just that you don't want to precipitate a crisis until you're good and ready to profit from it with a well-planned trade. Goldman Sachs would never make this kind of mistake.

A fall in stocks and commodities and a rise in U.S. bond prices are also consistent with the technical trends on the major indices we highlighted yesterday. The big bullish moves since the March lows have exhausted most of their momentum. You will now see the secondary trend, a counter rally in bonds as stocks consolidate (perhaps to be blindsided by more financial system issues later, but who knows?)

Does this mean Aussie investors ought to rush out of equities and back into property? Well, if you ask BIS Shrapnel, the answer is probably yes! Yesterday, the firm released a study that concluded Australian house prices will go up an average of 20% over the next three years. We're not making that up.

"We expect rising confidence in the prospects for an economic recovery in 2010, so investors are likely to return in greater numbers, attracted by increased rental returns and low interest rates," says BIS Shrapnel senior project manager Angie Zigomanis, who was apparently not informed that Australian banks have begun raising home loan rates.

Blah blah blah. Yammer yammer yammer. Lies lies lies.

Well, okay. Maybe not lies. And to be fair, the BIS report actually admitted that the inflation adjusted gains in Aussie house prices, should they actually materialise, would actually be about half the nominal figure. You'd have something more like a 9%-11% gain over three years, or about 3% compounded after inflation-which is about seventeen percent smaller than twenty.

Even three percent a year seems generous to us, given that Aussie unemployment is still rising. More importantly, the low point of the interest rate cycle has been reached. It's hard to see how that's bullish for housing-unless BIS is right and investors dump shares and try to lock in new financing before interest rates rise even further (double digits by 2011, we reckon).

And let us not forget that first home buyers accounted for 28% of all new housing finance in April, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That's the highest percentage since 1991, the ABS added. The first home buyers aren't just a marginal force in the market any longer. The lure of government grants has sucked them into the residential property market at a peak in prices and a low point in interest rates. They may be propping up the market now. But when their financial strength fails, it could crush them AND the rest of the market too.

This is simply a disaster waiting to happen for the unlucky first homebuyers, as we've said before. Nor does it bode well for the rest of the residential property market. Real estate agents always tell you that the sooner you get on the housing ladder the sooner you can move on up. Buy a house, sell it. Buy a bigger house, sell it. Buy an even bigger house, and so on. There are many mansions in Australia's property market.

What happens, though, if the lowest rung on the ladder is violently ripped off? If you bring forward years of demand by first home buyers and concentrate all that demand into a thirteen-month period (October of 2008 through the end of this year) what will happen? Hmm.

Well, for one, you will have structurally altered demand for housing finance for years to come. Eventually there's going to be a drought of new buyers who cannot get credit or cannot afford to get on the ladder without a $30k boost from the politicians. But even that is an optimistic view.

The more negative view is that a large percentage of the FHBs who've come in on the current grant package are going to get wiped out. They will be renters for a long time to come. This removes them from future demand for housing finance too.

And so who will investors low on the ladder sell to? Who will people on the second rung of the property ladder sell to if there's no one from the first rung looking to climb up? And if people in the middle of the housing market can't sell to trade up, where will demand and the top end come from?

Maybe we're wrong. We often are, and will be again (and again). But we suspect that the government's policy to bring demand forward at the bottom end of the market will destroy future demand at ALL levels of the market. And one more point about housing. Quit sending in e-mails telling us it doubles every ten years.

Seriously. Stop it. We're tired of reading them. Housing does not double every ten years. That is simply not true.

To get the doubling time for any investment you divide the interest rate you're getting by 72. This is known as "The Rule of 72". For example, an investment earning seven percent per year compounded would double in 10.3 years (72/7=10.28). You can see how absurd it is to suggest that it's possible for housing (or any investment really) to grow infinitely at a rate of 7%.

By the way, if you want to see more on inherent possibility of exponential growth-and you are not easily bored-give this video a try. And after reading it, tell us if you agree or disagree with the following statement: a fiat money system accelerates the depletion of resources and the misallocation of capital.

Hey did you see the government of New South Wales has come up with a nifty new policy of buy Australian? The Rees government has said that NSW government departments and agencies have to give preference to Australian-made products when buying uniforms, cars and even trains, according to Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

It's not exactly a Smoot-Hawley tariff war to kick off the next Great Depression. But in principle, this is an equally stupid policy. It's again a case of what is seen versus what is unseen. What will be seen? The jobs that go to Australian companies that make these things.

What is unseen? The cost to NSW taxpayers will most certainly be higher to "buy Australian." The government will pay more for these things, leaving it with less money to pay for other things. Or, it will raise taxes in order to pay for the higher spending, and the higher taxes leave New South Welshmen with that much less to spend on other products.

Either way, someone always pays the price when the government favours one group over the large group. About the only compelling argument for this kind of policy, in our opinion, is that competition for these goods or services from China (and that's who this targets) is "unfair."

That is, if the Chinese-or any other labour market for that matter-are using slave labour to produce goods, it's a sound principle not to buy those goods. But if it's not a moral issue and is just an issue of economics, the relevant question is whether these goods and services can be produced in Australia at competitive prices.

We suspect that for industries like textiles, the answer is simply no. Australia, like so many other Western countries, can't compete on labour or raw material costs with lower-cost manufacturers. Where Western post-industrial economies ought to be able to compete is on quality.

Consumers will always pay more for superior quality for certain goods (textiles, electronics, and manufactured goods). In fact, Japanese and Chinese consumers seem to love French luxury goods, as we recall from our time dodging them outside the shops on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris.

The point is that Western firms can carve out a niche in high-margin manufactured goods and even textiles, provided the quality is excellent. But it's not something you can do simply be changing a government policy. You have to compete. In the meantime, while we're measuring how many jobs the NSW policy saves, can we also measure what the higher costs mean to everyone else in NSW?

Finally, we were going to tell you about the Zombie war today. But we've run on too long already. More on that from our friend Shawn Cownah tomorrow.

Dan Denning
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Rule Scrapped: Banks to Value Assets Using Mark-to-Market
• Aussie Housing Market Actually Leads the U.S. by Three Years
• Australian Housing Market Getting Stronger Despite Fear of Inflation
• Housing Mistakes Embarrass the Rich
• Underlying Demand During a Housing Shortage

It will also be a long time before Americans return to free-spending ways. Not only do they no longer have the collateral to back up more debt, they are also growing older and wiser. Consumer spending rose 2.2% in the last quarter. But that is probably a fluke. Americans can't spend what they don't have. And they must save for long retirements...knowing that their houses and stocks could lose value at any time.

The last report we saw showed the saving rate was back towards 5% - a big jump up from zero a year ago. There is no way savings AND spending can go up at the same time.

What's more, their incomes are falling. Wages and salaries are down 1.2% over the last year. As this depression sinks in...Americans will lose more income.

USA Today opens with a cover story on "the new homeless." There's a photo of a 53-year-old man sitting in his tent. It's a "temporary situation," he says. But the tent city in Pinellas County, Florida, may be home for longer than he expects.

"Tent cities filling up with casualties of the economy,' says the headline. "Some middle-class workers with college degrees find themselves displaced by layoffs, foreclosures."

"Economy contracts 'faster than in the 1930s,'" says a headline in today's Financial Times. A research outfit is forecasting a drop in British national income of 4.3% - substantially worse than the government's guess. The reason for this new outlook is that "world trade has collapsed by more than forecast," explained an economist on the case. The report went on to forecast UK public debt at 100% of GDP.

The story is not much different in the United States. GDP is falling at a 6% annual rate. If this continues for a few years, it will make this depression worse than the Great Depression of the '30s - which hit America much harder than it did Britain (probably thanks to the forceful response of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations).

Equity losses last year were worse than those of '29. It stands to reason that the next phase - the economic decline - will also be worse than the '30s.

By our calculation, the U.S. economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage. Getting rid of that debt either involves a long, hard period of work and sacrifice - as debts are paid down. Or, it involves something much worse.

Our guess is that the feds - who still have no idea what is going on - will choose the second solution...something much worse.

But what, exactly? We have some ideas...some guesses...stay tuned.

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Normally Small Businesses Lead the Economy Out of Recession
• Investors and Their Lost Money
• This Isn’t a Recession
• Investors Are Thinking: Inflation is Coming, But it Isn’t Here Yet
• A Funny Story About $20 Gold Coins

"Optimism builds," says a headline in the Financial Times.

As predicted, the world markets are enjoying a bounce. People who had no idea there was anything wrong with the world financial system two years ago, now say the problem has been fixed.

Who fixed it? The people who had no idea what was wrong with it, of course.

What did they fix it with? The same thing that caused the problem they didn't see - debt.

Who makes sure it won't break again? The people who didn't notice the wheels coming off the last time.

Yesterday, the Dow rose 214 points. Oil closed over $54. Gold ended the day over $900. And dollar sank to $1.33 per euro.

Most interesting...bond yields, though still pathetically low, are rising. The U.S. 10-year note yields more than 3%. The long bond yields more than 4%.

The longer these trends go on, the more reasons people will find to believe that it is not just a bounce...but another major boom.

New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute says, "The U.S. is on the cusp of a growth rate cycle upturn," the article explains.

Let's look at whether this optimism is justified.

On the housing front...U.S. houses are down 30% from their highs. The Case-Shiller index of housing prices has fallen for 30 months in a row. Isn't that enough?

Maybe. The latest data shows more sales - of new, as well as existing houses. And there are more housing starts too. But in the former boomiest states - California, Nevada and Florida - about half the sales are of foreclosed properties. These properties are hitting bargain prices...but pulling down the value of the entire housing stock. And there are still lots of houses to sell. So don't expect any major turnaround in prices. If prices have hit bottom - which we doubt - gains are likely to be very small...and they'll come very slowly.

When the housing crisis began, we estimated that prices needed to come down about 40% in order to make the average house affordable by the average person. But that was before the average person's income came down. If the depression continues, as we think it will, house prices should come down a further 10% to 20%.

And don't forget about the second wave of defaults headed our way. The Richebächer Letter's Rob Parenteau tells us that in 2011, the "Option ARM" and "Alt-A" home loans will reset at a higher rate...and some unlucky homeowners could see their mortgage payments as much as double. Millions will see their wealth disappear...and the ripple effect it will have on the banks and economy as a whole will be devastating.

Besides, if the United States is entering the "worst downturn since the Great Recession," who will have the money to buy a house? But that's the issue. Maybe the world is not entering a major downturn, after all. Maybe it was just a case of mass hysteria...a panic, like the Y2K bug...or terrorism...or swine flu. Maybe people are now getting over it...and getting back to business, just like they did before.

Consumers are becoming bolder. Consumer confidence measures are about 20% below the baseline metric of 1985...but that's a big improvement; they had been nearly 40% below the '85 standard.

There is some evidence that consumers are returning to their bad habits, too. Consumer spending is picking up - at least, that's what recent numbers from the discount stores show. They're taking up cheap thrills and necessities again. But luxury shops are still reporting drops of about 20% per year.

Major stock markets have rebounded 20% and more. But the real excitement has come in emerging markets. A few months ago, it looked as though China would be unable to decouple from the developed world. They were stuck, said analysts, like a rusty sink drain. The Middle Kingdom was headed towards recession just like everyone else. But then those clever Chinese seem to have found a wrench big enough to pop the joint. Almost unbelievably, China seems to have pulled off the much desired "V-shaped recovery." Instead, of contracting, China's figures show it expanding at a more than 8% rate.

China might be lying, of course. It seems very unlikely to us that China could have recovered so quickly. This is not a recession, we keep saying. It's a depression. And depressions demand structural changes - the kind that takes time.

Besides, eyewitness reports tell a story that sounds like a cross between "Grapes of Wrath and a repeat of Mao's Long March." That is Elliot Wilson's description after a recent trip into the heartland of the communist giant.

"Once-bustling malls are now empty," Wilson continues. "Plaza 66 in Shanghai, owned by Hong Kong-listed Hang Lung Properties, is a case in point. On a Friday afternoon, the 51,700 square meters of high-end retail space boasted exactly 11 customers...

"Everywhere's the same. I talk to the concierges of Shanghai's leading hotels, always men in the know. At the JC Mandarin, occupancy is at 40 percent in early February, against 80% a year ago. At the vast JW Marriott, it's even worse; just 25%..."

Office complexes too are "empty, empty, empty...Gemdale... 50 floors of office space completed last summer are all empty..."

But what the heck? Maybe we're wrong. Maybe China is already recovering. It may be a structural depression - but only for the developed countries, particularly the United States. Maybe it's only a recession for China. And maybe it's over. Seems almost unbelievable...but now, with so many wonders to wonder about we wonder why we bother to wonder at all.

Besides, other developing economies are reporting the same things - increases in exports after a catastrophic collapse at the end of the last year. You can measure the collapse easily just by looking at the Baltic Dry Index - which keeps track of bulk shipping rates. It fell by more than 90% last year. From its low, it's doubled - up 100%. But that still leaves it down 80% from a year ago.

Stock markets in emerging markets show similar increases. Brazil's stock market is up almost 90% from its low. South Korean stocks are up 71%. And Chinese stocks - those listed on the Shanghai exchange - have gained 50%.

Apparently, someone thinks the worst is over. Maybe that person is right. But we doubt that this rebound is the sign of a new, healthy boom. Credit expanded for half a century. The Bubble Epoch at its end caused trillions of dollars worth of errors. Many of those errors have already been corrected. But the economy the bubble built remains unreconstructed. Same mismanaged companies...same mismanaged regulators...same mismanaged banks. Exporting nations had gotten into the habit of earning net sales from the U.S.A. of $2 billion per day. Those earnings provided much of the speculative capital that created the Bubble Epoch prices. But that money has all but disappeared. And there's not much chance that it will return anytime soon.

Instead of a healthy new boom, our guess is that the world is enjoying a sick echo of the old one. Governments, led by the U.S.A., attempt to reinflate the bubble with guarantees and giveaways equal to an entire year's annual output of the world's largest economy. Since every penny of this money is borrowed, it makes sense that every penny will have to be withdrawn from the world economy at some point.

In fact, economists are already looking ahead to the moment when deflation fears give way to inflation fears.

"Inflation Nation," is the title of an editorial in today's International Herald Tribune. In it, Alan Meltzer argues, "If President Obama and the Fed continue down their current path, we could see a repeat of those dreadful inflation years [the 1970s]."

Professor Meltzer reminds us that cutting off the inflation of the '70s wasn't easy. The feds turned the screws...and let the prime rate go above 21%. Of course, today's Fed has this information. And Paul Volcker, who was Fed chairman during that period, is now an economic advisor to Barack Obama. Still, "I do not worry about their knowledge or technical expertise," continues Mr. Meltzer, "What I doubt is the commitment of the administration and the autonomy of the Federal Reserve ... Under Bernanke, the Fed has sacrificed its independence and become the monetary arm of the Treasury..."

"The Fed's job is to take the punch bowl away," said an Eisenhower era chief. But we have come a long way since the Ike and Dick years. This time, the inflationary party is likely to get out of control, happy days will be here for a while...and then some very sad days are likely.

When the I.O.U.S.A. team interviewed Paul Volcker in December of 2007, he said, "...when I look back on my lifetime, it is obvious that letting inflation get a little bit out of control and not dealing with economic problems effectively in the'70s led to a very uncomfortable crisis. We don't want to have to go through big recessions again to teach people fiscal responsibility. Instead, we should anticipate what needs to be done while maintaining the growth of the economy. And the threat will always be an unstable economy and an unstable currency. And that's not just destructive to economic life, but it can be destructive to America's position in the world, which to me is the greatest concern."

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• The Feds Debate the ‘Long and Short’ of Recession
• The War On Capitalism Continues
• Most People Think a Rising Housing Market Makes Them Richer
• The Country is Going into a Recession with its Finances in the Worst Shape Ever
• Predictions for a Polite and Mild Recession

Let's take a look at two of the most popular Australian investments. Property and shares. I'll be blunt, things are bad for property investors. But they may be even worse for what I like to call "real estate brokers", or real estate agents. Why do I call them real estate brokers? Simple, for the last few years these real estate brokers have been advising buyers and sellers of property to churn houses just like shares.

Why? Because they thought that prices would always rise - and because they could earn a stack of commission. Buy one, wait for the value to go up, get it revalued then buy another and do the same. All of a sudden an average property investor has bought a dozen houses just from putting down $20k cash. The rest of the money they used was just 'funny money.' Although chances are that they borrowed the $20k 'cash' against their own home as well.

But to see just how bad things are in the property market you need look no further than the real estate brokers themselves. Not so long ago the car de jour for every broker or agent was a BMW. Shiny, 2-door or 4-door, it didn't matter.

What are real estate brokers driving these days? Well, based on a very small sample of two brokers seen at an 'open for inspection' last weekend, they are driving a six-year old Holden Commodore and three-year old Holden Astra.

If that isn't an indication that times are bad, then nothing is.

But maybe you can excuse the average punter for being made to believe that house prices and share prices can only ever rise in value. Or that if you 'buy and hold' then eventually everything will be fine. Remember the expression touted - "It's time in the market, not timing the market."

You know what, for shares the "time in the market" argument is starting to look pretty thin at the moment. Take a look at the chart below:

Even for investors that bought index weighted stocks in the early 1990's their return until today is probably not that much better than those that had been in cash. For those that started investing around 2000 then the returns are most probably even worse. That's if the investors bought and hold, which is what a typical fund manager will advise - obviously because it is in their interest to do so.

My guess is that more active investment management will be the key for anyone wanting to make a better-than-inflation return from shares over the next five years.

Whereas for property investors it will be a case of 'buy and hold.'

The Most Important Money Morning Story This Week:

The 'free market' has been getting some bad press lately. It is a shame because the market we have had could not by any definition of the word be described as a free market. You only have to look at the number of rules, regulations and codes for nearly every aspect of life and business to see that this is not and never has been a free market. Not only is the free market having to take the blame for what has actually been socialism, but it is also being made the scapegoat for criminality and fraud - neither of which has any connection whatsoever with free markets. This week's story on Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff explained it all. Click here for more...

Monday: They may see it as politically unpalatable, but the fact is, if you are prepared to except an economy that goes 'boom' you must be prepared to except one that goes 'kaboom.' That is what we have at the moment. Left to run its course the economy will be purged of the ills that caused the boom and will emerge stronger. Click here for more...

Tuesday: Alas, this is how a public bureaucracy works. The same bureaucracy that will be responsible for spending billions of dollars on infrastructure projects as part of the stimulus package. Good luck! Click here for more...

Wednesday: The big surprise was what else they have done with the rate. Having seen that the market was pricing interest rates well below the target rate, the Fed has thrown up its hands. Click here for more...

Thursday: If, as CBA claim, Merrill's were told about the revised write-offs then CBA is obliged to notify the market immediately. Failure to do so would result in Merrill's and its clients acting on information that was not widely known to the market. In other words, insider trading. Click here for more...

Friday: With six and a half billion people in the world, the demand for energy has never been greater. This demand - especially from China and India - is the hidden engine behind Australia's economy. One Perth based company is perfectly poised to capitalize on the voracious demand for energy. The "energy metal" they mine is critical for sustained renewable energy. Click here for more

• Recovery for the Real Estate Market
• How Did Australia Get Caught Up Losing Money in Commercial U.S. Real Estate?
• Gold, Commodities and Markets
• Commercial Real Estate May Be the Next to Fall
• House Prices Down and Aussie Market Enters Second Wave of Rebound Rally

All around us is virgin territory. No one has ever been here before. But watch out, these virgins are vicious amazons. In this wild place, you can forget living it up. Don't even think about getting rich. Riches? If you've got 'em...hide 'em. Luxury? Who needs it anyway? The best you'll be able to do is survive. And then, maybe, years from now, we can put our financial lives back together again...and get on with things...

Never before have seen so much wealth disappear in such a short time. The latest report from MSCI shows the planet's losses from the sell-off of equities has now reached more than $30 trillion - or more than twice the GDP of the U.S.A.!

And this is just stocks. Reported write-downs, write-offs and credit losses have reached almost a trillion. And losses of housing prices in the United States alone - the only country for which we have reliable figures - has reached about $5 trillion.

Nor have we ever seen such a rapid reaction. In the space of a few months, people have gone from believing that nothing could go wrong to thinking that there's nothing that won't go wrong. Where once they thought that free-market capitalism would make them rich...they now believe that the government can save them from getting poor. And where only a year ago they thought the world's globalized economy would always give them everything they needed "just in time," they now believe they better keep a few sheckels on hand "just in case."

And just look at the bonds! A few months ago, investors stretched for yields. Now, it's safety they reach for. They dump corporate bonds for fear they may be "toxic," and grab U.S. Treasury debt with both hands. Investors now seem to have an unqualified trust in the full faith and credit of the world's largest debtor. Yields on 91-day T-bills have fallen to 0.11% - scarcely a tenth of one percent!

Yes, dear reader, the "Great Unwind"...the "Big Bust"...the "Great De-leveraging" - call it what you want; we've never seen anything like it.

The Dow rose 151 points yesterday - a limp and pathetic little attempt buck the downward trend. Gold lost $6.80...leaving it at $735.

China's stock market had managed an 18% rebound...following the announcement of its half-trillion dollar bailout plan. But yesterday, Chinese stocks were collapsing again.

The latest news from America tells us that housing prices are still going down in 4 out of 5 cities. Homebuilders' wives are hiding the shotguns and pouring out the whiskey; their husbands' confidence has never been lower, according to this morning's news report.

Big towns...little towns...in the sophisticated cities and out in bumpkin country, the story is the same. The Wall Street Journal tells us that the "fall in crop prices" is putting an end to the boom in the boonies.

U.S. producer prices fell 2.8% in October - the most they've ever fallen. And the Big Three automakers say that if they don't get some help soon, the results will be "catastrophic."

Meanwhile, over on the sunny California coast, the whole state is going up in smoke...it's not only going broke, it's burning up.

"I have to dust the ash off my car every morning," reports daughter Maria, recently arrived in LA and hoping to make it big in the motion pictures. "It's eerie...there's always a little smoke and soot in the air..."

Not only is the bust unlike anything we've ever seen before...so is the planet-wide effort to stop it. All over the globe, the feds are going 'into the wild' with extraordinary measures. They're mobilizing troops to fight the crisis in the boardrooms. They'll fight it in the stock markets. They'll fight it at home - with house-to-house combat to stop foreclosures and defaults. They'll fight it abroad - the U.S. government is even loaning money to foreign governments! They'll fight it with loans and giveaways. They'll fight it with fiscal policy. They'll fight it with monetary policy. They'll fight it with every weapon available to them - including the printing press.

And they will lose.

*** To give you an idea of the wild measures undertaken by the feds, we look at what is happening at the world's leading bank - the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The short form of how the Fed operates is this: it holds a certain amount of securities in its vault; this is the cornerstone capital - or monetary base - of the whole banking structure. How does it get this capital? It buys it, creating the money to pay for it as necessary. Naturally, the Fed doesn't want to create too much money or the inflation rate would get out of control and economists would point their fingers accusingly. But now, people fear dandruff more than inflation. So, the Fed has gone wild.

From the day of its founding in 1913 to September 24, 2008 the Fed's assets - the aforementioned cornerstone capital for the US financial system - grew to $1 trillion. By November 14, 2008 the amount had grown to over $2 trillion. And in a speech in Texas, the head of the Dallas branch of the Fed said he expected the total to reach $3 trillion by year-end.

For the moment, this explosion of monetary inflation is hardly noticed. Asset deflation has the headlines. People worry about having too few dollars, not about having too many.

Comes the news this morning that U.S. business chiefs are asking the up-coming Obama administration for another $500 billion 'stimulus' program. They'll get it. And much more. Trillions worth.

Trying to stimulate the economy with easier credit in the early 2000s, Alan Greenspan overdid it. He gave the world the credit it wanted, and created the biggest bubble in human history.

Now that bubble is collapsing and his successor - Ben Bernanke - is confronted with a new problem. Now it is cash that people want - income to pay their debts! Bernanke will give them what they want. And, most likely, he will overdo it too.

*** At a recent hearing on Treasury Department use of government assistance funds, Ron Paul, who is well-known for often calling out the Federal Reserve chairman on their liberal use of the printing press, took on Big Ben. Here is the transcript of their interaction, in case you missed the C-SPAN coverage:

Ron Paul: The Austrian free market economists had predicted all these problems would come, and they were certainly correct in everything that they said. Of course they're not very satisfied including myself with the so-called solutions, because it looks like we're spending a lot of energy and a lot of money trying to patch a system together that is unworkable.

So we have Congress spending a lot of money, we have Treasury very much involved in trying to pick and choose which worthless asset that we're going to buy, and of course the Federal Reserve is involved in injecting trillions of dollars that nobody seems to be keeping track of.

But what we're failing to do I think is to recognize that the system no longer works, but I can understand why we do this because if Congress couldn't do this and if the Fed couldn't do this and Treasury couldn't do this, it would make us all irrelevant. And instead of looking at the causes of this, and then finding the solutions aren't going to be found here, we have to make ourselves feel pretty important.

But I think there's another reason we think we're pretty important, it's because in a way our interference in the market corrections that tried to come about since 1971 seem to work. I mean, the failure was established in 1971 with a system that had no way of automatically correcting the balance of payment and the current account deficits.

And that's where the problems have been, and economists - whether they were left or right or middle - over the last several decades have always said, this current account deficit is a big problem. And now it's totally out of hand. So here we are struggling with all these rules and shifting back and forth and really getting nowhere.

My question is directed toward, when we come to the full realization that the system is unworkable, what are we going to do, what have you thought about doing, and already we see talk in the newspapers. We see articles about a new international world reserve currency, and to me that's pretty important, because the fiat dollar reserve system is not going to work anymore, and that's the information that we have to accept and decide what we're going to do in the future.

Also, this is not new in history. Currencies have failed, financial systems have failed, and generally, to restore the confidence that everybody is talking about, they usually have to go back to a currency with integrity to it, rather than just fiat money.

And, you know, the stages is there. It's not impossible, already the central banks of the world still own 15% of all the gold that was ever mined in all of history. So they hold on to this gold for some reason, and therefore something has to give, or are we going to keep trying to waste more money and time patching this system together.

Just last week there was a report that Iran purchased 75 billion dollars worth of gold, took their reserves out of Europe, bought gold and put it in Asia. So is that a sign of the times, is that moving on?

My question is, in your meetings, and you had a meeting just recently with other central bankers, does this thought come up about a new international world reserve currency, and if so, does the subject of gold ever come up?

How do you restore the confidence? Have you recently had conversations with any central banker, and is there a move on to replace the dollar system, because the dollar system is essentially declared dead, because it's not working, but this indeed was predictable because of these tremendous imbalances that were never allowed to be corrected, and they were always patched up. We always came in. We'd spend, we'd inflate, we would run up deficits, and since '71 we've been able to correct these problems.

Could you tell me what kind of conversations you've had regarding a new reserve currency?

Ben Bernanke: Yes, Congressman. I don't think the dollar system is dead. I think the dollar remains the premier international currency. We've seen a good deal of appreciation in the dollar recently during the crisis precisely because there's been a lot of interest in the safe haven and the liquidity of dollar markets.

And the Federal Reserve has been engaged in swap agreements to make sure there's enough dollar liquidity in other countries because the need for dollars is so strong. So I think the dollar system remains quite strong.

I do agree with you very much on one point, which is about the current accounts. The current account imbalances have proved to a very serious problem. It was in fact the large capital inflows in those current accounts which created a lot of the financial imbalances we saw and have led to some of the problems we are seeing, and one of the silver linings in this huge grey cloud is that we're seeing some improvement and greater balance in our current account deficits.

Ron Paul: But does the subject of a new regime ever come up?

Ben Bernanke: No, it doesn't.

Ron Paul: And does the subject of gold ever come up in any of your conversations?

Ben Bernanke: Only in terms of the sales that the central banks are planning.

The I.O.U.S.A. team interviewed the Congressman for the documentary. If you didn't have a chance to see the film when it was in theaters, now's your chance. We are offering an exclusive package to long time DR sufferers: you can get the DVD (before it is released to the general public), the companion book and your own personal bailout package. Don't let this opportunity pass you by...quantities are limited, and are going fast.

*** GWB - you can't say we didn't warn you. A top British judge has just announced that he considers the Bush administration's attack on Iraq as a violation of international law. Years from now, George W. Bush is likely to be charged with war crimes and human rights violations. Normally, this would pose no problem. A former U.S. president could expect the protection of the U.S. government. But as Americans sink into depression they are not likely to feel kindly towards their ex-president. They will blame him for the decline of their incomes...and for the fall of their empire. They are likely to want to cooperate with the world's new institutions...and throw over their own former commander-in-chief.

Advice to GWB: Go back to Texas. Don't ever leave home again.

*** Colleague Patrick Cox, at Breakthrough Technology Alert offers some rare optimism into this otherwise downright gloomy market:

"Yes, we have been swindled by politicians who pushed the U.S. banking system into the shape it's in today. The people who tried to stop the meltdown have utterly failed to explain the root of the problem to the American people. We've officially entered recession now and policymakers will do little to address the real problems.

"Though the hit the economy has suffered recently pales in comparison with the drain on world resources associated with that war, our situation is similar. We are at a point of incredible opportunities.

"The reason is, in a word, science. The accelerating pace of breakthrough discoveries will deliver economic benefits that few fathom today. While the entire world will gain from these discoveries, investors who understand what we are going through now will profit most and earliest. Even better, the return on these stocks will be so great that even relatively modest investments will produce fortunes.

"Let me give you a few hints about the shape of things to come. Just in the last few weeks, two groups of scientists announced the discovery of microorganisms that produce biodiesel naturally. Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University discovered a fungus deep in the Patagonian rain forests of Argentina. This organism naturally produces the long chain hydrocarbons needed to create fuels.

"Even bigger news is coming on the medical front. I predict that real stem cell therapies will be offered offshore within the year. Currently, there is a billion-dollar industry offering stem cell snake oil, but real lifesaving and life-extending therapies are already available in the laboratory. These therapies are relatively inexpensive to produce and will revolutionize medicine. Even the FDA will come around when wealthy early adopters begin reporting true rejuvenation results. By the end of Obama's first term, we will see SC and other therapies that will radically cut the cost of treating horrendously expensive illnesses."

Patrick has been alerting us to a breakthrough that could change the way we view modern medicine. And when news breaks - which is rumored to happen tonight - those who have gotten in on this revolutionary idea stand to make some pretty major gains.

*** We got a letter from Her Majesty's government.

"Winter Fuel Payments...don't miss out!"

Yes, dear reader, this is how societies collapse. People invent problems. Then, they find solutions to the problems. Then, the solutions cause more problems. And finally the cost of all the solutions brings the whole system falling down.

A news report out today tells us that the weekend will be cold. An "arctic blast" is said to be on its way.

Of course, some parts of the city already feel as though they were in a nuclear winter. London's main industry is finance. And finance has iced up. A headline in yesterday's paper told us that London is expected to lose 370,000 jobs over the next two years.

But thank God for the world improvers:

"Our records show that you may become eligible for a payment this winter," begins the letter.

Why? Because your editor is enrolled in the Britain's national health service (a requirement for employment). NHS records must have revealed to the authorities that your editor turned 60 in September. Accordingly, he is eligible for 125 pounds to help him with his heating costs this winter.

Imagine the miserable bureaucrats administering this program. They have computers to program...letters to write...records to keep...internal procedures to devise, administer and respect. They have to hire people...and then support them for the rest of their lives, paying for pensions and holiday, just like any other business. Then, they have to work out internal disputes...make sure the coffee maker is working properly...and organize an annual Christmas party. It probably costs more than 125 pounds to send out each check!

And why should someone over 60 get money and not someone under 30? The older person has had 30 more years to stuff newspaper in the cracks, firewood in his garage and money in his bank account. If he's cold this winter...it's his own damn fault.

But if you're going to give him money to help him keep warm, why not some extra money to help him with his eating needs? He has to eat, doesn't he? And why doesn't HM Government just send him a bottle of Chateau Margaux? Maybe 1985. To help him with his drinking needs.

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Oil Prices Decline but Consumers Aren’t Out of the Woods Yet
• Housing Market Drops Housing Prices by 16%
• The Feds Are Counting on Fannie and Freddie to End the Nation’s Housing Misery
• Dealing with Future Economic Problems Today
• Denmark, Spain, the U.K. and Ireland Have Begun to Register Falling Housing Prices

Goldman fell off a cliff Wednesday. The stock sold for $240 last November. Now, you can buy all you want for just $120.

So far this year, the Dow is down 16%. That makes it one of the world's best performing markets! English stocks are down 22%. In Paris, the Bourse is off 27%. Indian stocks are down 33%. But Chinese stocks have lost twice as much - 67%.

Getting back to our "collision of scams," as Peter Bernstein puts it, there are a lot of feathered scams...and they're all coming home to roost at the same time. There's bound to be trouble in the coop.

In from the front yard comes the scam of ever-rising house prices. And it collides head on with the scam of the consumer finance coming from the henhouse roof (that people could borrow from their houses in order to increase spending)...

...that runs into the whole humbug of the consumer economy (that people can get richer by spending money they don't have)...

...that smashes into the flimflam of subprime mortgage lending...

...which bumps into the scam of the financial industry's business model (the masters of the universe claimed to be adding value by "allocating capital efficiently; what they were really doing was merely loading people up with debt)...

...which crashes into the big birds of Wall Street (now going broke)...

...which runs into the fraud of government bailouts (that the feds can put in money that comes out of thin air; in fact, any resources the put in to prop up failing institutions has to be taken from healthy ones...)...

...which creates one heck of a mess when it slams into the dollar and the counterfeit global monetary system since 1971 (in which the supply of paper money is unlimited...and the full faith and credit of the US government is thought to be infinite!)

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

• Maybe the “Cartoon” House Period is Over
• American House Prices Continue to Fall While the Same Can’t Be Said About Australian House Prices
• Social Security a Bigger Scam Than What Bernard Madoff Schemed
• Daily Reckoning Reader Mail…
• Aussie House Prices Face “Perfect Storm”