There Must Be Life Elsewhere

Folks, I understand that people need to "keep hope alive," but there are times when you hear things, and you just have to scratch your head and wonder. A few days ago on CNBC, they had a couple of representatives of the real estate business on for some comments. Now again, I don't mind some spin, but this was so far out there, that even the woman interviewing them was embarrassed. Essentially, these guys said that while housing is down, it shows signs of life, and that prices are rising in some areas. The optimistic comments continued and the interviewer finally said something like, "You're saying these things, but all of the numbers and data are pointing in the opposite direction." Now folks, I know there are places where there have been small increases in the price of real estate, but they are relatively few and far between, and the overall national trend has been downward pressure on home prices. Almost every week some kind of statistic is released showing new home sales down, new home construction down, existing home sales down, existing home prices down. Then another guy was on CNBC on (1/24/08) and in his comments about economic conditions he said something to the effect that "we know that the housing recession is ending." This guy must have data that even the Federal Reserve doesn't have! Maybe he just misspoke, but all of this kind of talk just makes me sit there and say, "Well, now we know there IS life on other planets, because all of these folks can't be from here!"