My pal Bonddad is going to have to stop writing posts entitled, "Housing is Nowhere Near a Bottom", because at the rate we are going, housing will be at ZERO starts and permits within a year!
We just got 10% of the way closer, because permits fell from 511k to 494k. and starts fell from a revised 510k to 458k!
Calculated Risk and I agree that the bottom in housing starts almost has to happen this year, because we're running out of positive integers....
In the meantime, this is evidence that the housing market is nowhere near turning around, and an important leading indicator that is a big negative. I don't see the recession bottoming until there is evidence that housing starts are bottoming, and it isn't here.
chicken - egg
If wages, income are not there I don't see how housing can recover.
So, can it be said the recession will not recover until the U.S. middle class does?
I tried to pass around your WPA idea, I think that's a dynamite focus and frankly we got lip service on jobs. I need to do a "so, how many jobs were actually created so far by the Stimulus? post.