Cripes On A Unicycle

"Yeah, it can get a little chapped sometimes, but just put some lotion on it."
—The Very Secret Diaries Of Legolas Greenleaf

Now comes this fresh horror.

Friday, February 08, 2008
NAR: The Punch Bowl is Back!

WASHINGTON, Feb 08, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The National Association of Realtors congratulated the U.S. Congress for quickly passing a national economic stimulus package and thanked President George W. Bush for his leadership [blah fnorking blah-dee-blah blah blah]

Increasing FHA loan limits will help an additional 138,000 Americans achieve the dream of homeownership and will allow nearly 200,000 homeowners to refinance and potentially keep their home, according to NAR research.

I'm posting the text of this only so that when we go back and do the numbers at the end of 2008 and see that NAR's estimates for GSE refis and purchases were off by about an order of magnitude, we don't have to worry about the link to the original PR having disappeared from the toobz.

[...]

Tanta has written extensively about this abominable fornication of GSE fiscal policy. If you had any hope that the U.S. government would help, rather than hinder, the Federal Reserve's efforts to soften the landing of the tailspinning U.S. economy, then it's time to pitch that out the window now. Say your prayers and transmit your supplications to whatever patron deities of panic, crisis and asteriod impacts your religious tradition has, because it's going to be a rough landing.