PBS New Hour had a segment on the market this week and their reporter--not the host presenters but reporters--said Wall Street is far too optimistic in thinking the mortgage rollocoaster will straighten out by the end of 2007. they think the "unwinding" will continue.

So, many mortgages sold over and over again to so many different places often means that no one has a clue who holds their own mortgages! Yikes!

Fed had a meeting this week and didn't raise rate from 5.25%.

POLITICS: More wacko moves on the presidential race 2008 as there is another move to make more primaries earliers in the calendar. Talk of the Iowa Caucases having to move to December(!)

More subprime adjustable loans to reset in the next 12-15 months. Other news: Artic summer sea ice has melted this summer to new levels of retreat. Greenland glacier melt has made it to the NBC broadcast news.

Barrel Crude: 81.65 at open

Artic Summer Ice retreated/melted this summer more than it ever has before. At the rate it's going we'll have ice-free Artic summers by 2015. This is a remarkable increase in melting since 2005 when the shrinking was to 1.5 million sqaure miles. In 2007 the melting was 1 million square miles. The ice-free Artic summer is moved up it's date from mid-century ro the coming decade. 30 year or so move up in global warming effects. How many more global warming effects are going to speed up like this? :(

Dow got hammered at the close finishing at 12,797; 12,850 was the low in August 2007 fall and swoon.

Gentlemen who handles my mom's investment money apologized for the way her funds have acted the past 45 days! I don't know enough to know how many may be related to any of the mortgage problems. I know he said 6 months ago he would take the closed end funds backed by mortages securities out of her portfolio and got into more energy backed funds. I don't know enough to suggest what should be done except for that suggestion he made then. She is 86 and even with dementia is doing pretty well physically so we have to make the money last as long aspossible. Of course, with someone that age you never know.

Plan to bail out some homeowners who are in over their head with their mortgages--this could be anyone since 2003 basically but this help out is people in the past 2 years who got mortages. fund is not from government but from large banks with the most to lose--Citigroup is one, i think B of A is another. Wells Fargo, Chase, Wamu, Wachovia all have their big problems with write-offs these days. More and more predictions of we have no idea what's really going to happen in this economic situation since no one has ever seen it before. Some predict the mother of all recessions (what we've known since Second World War in the US) or depression depending on far down the road you look. Most think all the Powers that Be in the US will do their best to keep things going until after the 2008 election so big problems may not happen until 2009 or after. we'll see.

The financial markets have remained pretty much in the same areas they've been. There has been more bad news about bank losses, more bad real estate market news and more effects on the rest of the economy.

The European Central Bank put an enormous sum into it's markets mid-week before Christmas. Our Fed keeps making more money available for the banks but the banks aren't responding by loaning to each other; keeping hold of money so they don't go under is what many commentators are saying. No one has much good to say and I don't say that just because I read "doom" stuff. Of course, the National Association of Real Estate Agents is "upbeat" but they always are anyway. Parts of the country have enough housing inventory to last 2-3 years whether residential property is for sale or a rental.

Atlanta and other SouthEastern cities/communities waiting to see what happens when their water runs out in another month or so. Oh, yes, Benazir Bhutto, female Pakistani politician was assassinated today. They're supposed to have an election in Pakistan in January and she was in it but who knows if they'll have it now. A good reason for our government to put more troops in Pakistan, I imagine.