Housing Prices in California.

Sometimes a chart is worth a thousand words.  This one, of the collapsing real estate market in California, is breath-taking.  

The End of That.

No more Bear Stearns, no more Lehman Brothers and at the end of the day today, the ticker symbol for Merrill Lynch (MER) will be no more.   Amazon will replace Merrill in the S&P 100.  Goodbye to 2008!  

Disunion.

A crazy Russian guy is making headlines by forecasting the disintegration of the United States of America. There's a much less jingoistic book on this very subject by Juan Enriquez. Juan's book can be found here. The first chapter is amazingly prescient.

The Bubble

Politico reports that President-elect Obama is "bristling" over the invasive press coverage of his vacation in Hawaii. As well he might.  There's no need for it.  It's a waste of time and money and the only purpose it serves is to make the Obama family's vacation less relaxing.