STILL IN THE DUMPS – AT 11:37 A.M. ET:   New housing statistics show that we are still very much in the housing dumps, yet Washington talks about a brilliant recovery.  Where's the recovery?  From Bloomberg:

Purchases of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in February to the slowest pace on record and prices dropped to the lowest level since December 2003, adding to evidence the industry is floundering.

Sales decreased 16.9 percent to a 250,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a gain to a 290,000 rate, according to the median estimate. The median price fell 8.9 percent from the same month in 2010.

Builders are struggling to compete with existing homes as foreclosures add to the overhang of unsold properties and drive down values. The figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market “continues to be depressed” even as the rest of the economy improves.

COMMENT:  The reality here is that a home is usually the largest expenditure in the history of most famlies, and people often have their life savings tied up in where they live.  But more and more Americans are getting into a situation where the house owns them, rather than the other way around.  Add to this the drumbeat of rising property taxes, the better to pay the vast benefits demanded by public-service employees, and we have a bad fix.

I get the sense, from the materials we review here, that our economic doldrums will last years, and that any "recovery" will be tentative and delicate.  We still don't know the impact of the Japanese earthquake on that country's economy, which will surely impact the United States.  Nor do we know the impact of the Mideast mess.

Not exactly good news for the unemployed.

March 23, 2011