RSSHousing Markets; Sales Rise to Record in April
Looks like the gloom and doom Housing bubble people got it wrong again. Existing-home sales hit a record high in April.
According to the National Association of Realtors ®. Single-family home sales rose 4.5 percent in April to a record seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million from a level of 6.01 million in March. Last month’s sales activity was 5.0 percent above the 5.98 million-unit pace in April 2004. The median single-family home price was $203,800 in April, up 15.1 percent from a year earlier.
The gloom and doomers have been predicting a housing bubble so often and for so many months that even a broken clock has been correct more often and these market pundits.
Existing Home Sales Data can be seen here.
As for those regional bubbles that they talk about:
Regionally, the home resale pace in the South jumped 7.4 percent from March to a record annual rate of 2.74 million units in April, and was 8.3 percent higher than a year ago
Total existing-home sales in the Midwest rose 5.8 percent to a record annual rate of 1.64 million in April, and were 3.8 percent above April 2004.
Existing-home sales in the Northeast increased 4.3 percent to a record annual pace of 1.20 million units in April, and were 7.1 percent above the level of a year ago.
Existing-home sales in the West held even at an annual rate of 1.61 million units in April, and were 2.5 percent higher than April 2004.
One would think that eventually there will be a slow down or correction, but the people that have predicted the market bubble have been discredited time and time again. As I refer to them as the “Boy who cried market bubble.”
The US housing market, he said, was also showing signs of a bubble, marked by high prices and speculative demand.
Hat Tip: Jayson at PoliPundit
Also great comments by regular PoliPundit commenter, Steve_in_Corona. “Residential housing in Southern California is hardly the same as pets.com or other internet stock bubble stories”.
And here.
Revenge of the Sith, May be Hazardous to your Health
Wow, I did not realize that a “Surgeons General” comment needed to be shown at the beginning of the Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith? Folks, it is a movie, it is not real, they are special effects.
PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME. THEY ARE TRAINED PROFESSIONALS.
In what can only be described as a thinning of the herd, two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.
A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it.
They did what!!! A 20 and 17 year old did what? I guess they didn’t think that this would happen. I would venture a guess as to say “thinking” was not a regular process done by these two on a regular occasion.
The pair were rushed to hospital after one of the devices exploded in woodland at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.
They are both said to be in a critical condition.
She said the 17-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man from Hemel Hempstead suffered serious injuries.
Could there be a law suit down the road as these two “Darwin Award” nominees? Their injuries were caused by being influenced by the life like special effects and story line of the Star Wars movie. Yeah, that’s it. John Edwards isn’t doing much these days, maybe he can take the case if they will let him practice law in England.
One of the crucial scenes features a light sabre battle between Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker.
I’m glad the crucial scene of the movie want Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker shooting each other with blasters. One can only wonder what these two would have dreamed up?
Zarqawi Wounded?
According to an Al Qaeda’s group in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been wounded and urged Muslims to pray for him.
O nation of Islam… Pray for the healing of our Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from an injury he suffered in the path of God,” said a statement from the Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq. Its authenticity could not be verified.
US forces in Baghdad have stated that they have no information as to his health and state that Zarqawi is still their “number one target to be captured or killed”.
The Pentagon in Washington said it had no basis to confirm or deny the story.
The terrorists even know how to spin a story.
“Let the near and far know that the injury of our leader is an honor, and a cause to close in on the enemies of God, and a reason to increase the attacks against them,” the statement said.
It ended with prayers for al-Zarqawi, calling on the nation of Islam to “pray for our Sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to recover from an injury he suffered for God’s sake.”
More from the Gateway Pundit
Previous post: Could It Be True; Zarqawi Killed?
Explain This One To Your Fellow Inmates
Some how I would not want to be Mr. Takeishi Shibuya in many ways. Its bad enough he was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail. However, he might have an even interesting time telling his fellow prison inmates what he is in for. Imagine surrounded by hardened criminals and he is asked.
Takesishi, “what are ya in for”?
Response: “ksjlfnrjzjk”.
“What”?
Response: “msdfnwkaga”
“What”?
OK, I’m in for kidnapping dolls.
New York, Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work
This just gets put in the “WTF” category. Who is going to justify this one in the long line of social do-gooder programs? Is it bad enough that that medications like Viagra are covered at all by Medicaid while other services are denied or cut back on? Now we learn that convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in New York have been getting Viagra paid by Medicaid for the last five years.
Audits by Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s office showed that between January 2000 and March 2005, 198 sex offenders in New York received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Those included crimes against children as young as 2 years old, he said.
Hevesi asked Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a letter Sunday to “take immediate action to ensure that sex offenders do not receive erectile dysfunction medication paid for by taxpayers.”
We need to tell them to do this? Everyday we see a new Amber Alert of a missing child, a picture of a sexually molested child and view the funeral of a child murdered by a serial pedophile. All the while in states like NY, sex offender are receiving Viagra from tax payer’s dollars.
The two concerned NY Senators commented, “the problem should be corrected.” As The Moderate Voice pointed out, May we quote the great thinker Aristotle on that statement? “Duh.”
So it would appear that this little problem began in 1998. Who was the President? Who was the First Lady? And who wanted Government controlled Health care?
According to Hevesi, the problem is an unintended consequence of a 1998 directive from federal officials telling states that Medicaid prescription programs must include Viagra. His office discovered that the state was helping sex offenders pay for Viagra by checking Medicaid pharmacy expenditures against the state’s sex offender registry.
So just like every other mess that the Bush Administration has had to clean up from their predecessors, The Bush administration is scrambling to find a way to close a loophole that allows convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders to receive Viagra at taxpayer expense.
One really begins to wonder what purpose our government serves as it is obviously too large a bureaucracy to even understand what it does anymore or how to regulate itself. Tax dollars to pay for sex offender’s Viagra so that they can go out and commit more heinous crimes. One almost has to go out of their way to overlook this issue. Or is this an ACLU issue that sex offenders rights to Viagra will be violated? This repulsive story goes to the top of the list in the “WTF” Hall of Shame.
Update: Looks like someone else agrees, armageddonproject with “why we need smaller government”
