Economics Update

It's Monday, so let's start with real estate.

The first is this story on San Francisco real estate. It's falling like a poleaxed steer, so both of the most desirable locations on both coasts are hit by the slump, which should come as no surprise.

Additionally, we have the NAHB reporting that builder confidence is staying at a record this month, which makes sense: If builders are not near suicidally depressed they are crazier than Rod Blagojevich.

Of course, it appears that Fitch ratings is actually crazier than Blago, or perhaps just dumber, because only now have they adjusted their ratings of Alt-A mortgage backed securities, which have been collapsing for at least 6 months.

In the rest of the economy, we have New York Federal Reserve's Empire State Manufacturing Survey deteriorating significantly, which, considering the capital intensive nature of manufacturing, is probably why business bankruptcies are jumping, with 58,000 through the end of November, as compared with 43,000 for all of 2007.

Quick math says that we are looking about 61K for the year, or about a 40% increase.

Under these conditions, its inevitable that a flight to safety would drive 30-year US bonds to record low yields, below 3%.

In currencies, we have another devaluation of the ruble, and the dollar is at a 2 month low on the expectation of a Fed rate cut.

In energy, retail gasoline was down again, after yesterday's bump that followed 86 days of decline, while oil fell about 2%, though it was above $50/bbl earlier today, and OPEC is saying that they are really serious about cutting production this time....Yeah sure.