[Wyatt's Torch]

--Get rid of mark-to-market accounting rules, which are unnecessarily destroying the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions. For regulators and auditors to force banks to repeatedly write down the value of their regulatory capital based on an impaired market is an astonishing absurdity. Selling anything in a distressed market always leads to artificially low prices. If mark-to-market accounting had been in effect in the early 1990s, when we last had a financial crisis, most of the major commercial banks would have gone under. We'd have had another Great Depression. To appease those who think there is use in this kind of pricing of assets, include it in a footnote.

Dead. On. Accurate. There is a reason why I had a "Forbes 1996" sticker on my car. We are caught is a vicious cycle of:

Increased Distressed Sales =====> Lower home values =====> Declining home equity =====> Rising foreclosures =====> Increased distressed sales

I was on a call with one of the top Wall Street housing analysts and she laid out this case. She was pleading for the regulators to impose some sanity and has called out "mark-to-market" rules as a major contributor to the problem. Because of this, she is calling for 5,000,000 more lost homes due to foreclosure over the next 3 years which with further exacerbate the already horrific housing market. The really bad news is that housing leads consumer spending which leads the economy. Based on these facts, the housing market will not begin to recover until 2011.

[Notary Sojac]

the housing market will not begin to recover until 2011

Housing prices will bottom out when the last wave of ARM resets have worked their way through the system, I think you are right about that date.

But we will not see 2005 bubble prices again for another 20 years, unless America goes the Zimbabwe route.