Having been involed in real estate on a daily basis I have been watching the market and have been telling people that would listen that things were getting scary out there for the last few years. I might have been a bit early, but it appears now everyone is catching on. The subprime mess that is getting all the press is just the beginning. People have been living high on the hog on the back of rapidly appreciating real estate values and easy financing terms and now the music has stopped and there are way more people then there are chairs. And the pundits and experts that say this will not cause widespread or noticeable problems in the overall economy are living in Wonderland. The mortgage industry layoffs are just beginning. The construction industry layoffs are just beginning. Going forward lenders are tightening their standards for homebuyers, builders and developers. This tightening is going to have significant ripple effects across the economy from Wall Street to Detroit to Hollywood to Main Streets across America by cutting jobs and cutting consumption as people are unable to borrow "fun" money for vacations, granite counter tops and new cars.

With all the market based issues that are taking place and that will emerge, add to that the prospect of Congress getting involved to "fix the problem" and things get ugly!

After watching and listening to a portion of the Plame testimony yesterday, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed and disappointed. Despite numerous recent examples contradicting the idea, I still like to believe that at the heart of things, Congressmen have the best interests of our Country at heart. Watching and listening to them question Plame, I came away thinking that Congress is just about the show. The questions were repetive and narrowly focused. And even now, we still do not seem to know the answer to one simple question: Was Plame covert? She says yes, but the record, including her prior testimony would seem to indicate otherwise. What a sad distraction this is.