Economics Update

In the world of pipe dreams, we have the EU calling for a coordinated response to the credit squeeze.

The Euro-Wimps just don't get it. This is America. We don't do joint action based on a deliberate approach to everyone's long term best interest. We shoot first, and ask questions later, and when the dead guy we shot doesn't answer, we water board him, and then we bail out the bad actors, like Bear Stearns.

In the ever entertaining world of the monoliners, Fitch has cut MBIA's rating to AA from AAA, because they are under capitalized (broke).

The disgrace here is that it took so long, though you knew that it was coming when MBIA asked Fitch to stop rating it about 3 weeks ago.

In the no surprise category, bankruptcies jumped 30% over in march 2007 year over year.

And for those of you who think that commercial real estate will be uneffected by the crash, vacancies at malls have skyrocketed.