Economics Update

Well, the Conference Board's consumer confidence report came out and it is starkly grim, dropping to a record low of 25, lower than had been predicted.

BTW, it's not just us, German business confidence has fallen, and Standard & Poor’s lowered Latvia's debt rating to junk.

This means that German businesses have no confidence in the new future, and no one has any confidence in Latvia.

Even the New York Stock Exchange is getting in the act, looking at temporarily suspending a requirement of a $1/share price in order to avoid delisting....I call it a Citi Special, though the two most prominent companies at risk of delisting right now are AIG and Ford.

The fact that the Case-Shiller numbers for the top 20 real estate markets show a price decline of 18.5% year over year, has a lot to do with that.

In currency, the dollar fell a bit, while in energy, oil rose.