Thursday, October 30, 2008

Still no end in sight

US house prices

Still no end in sight

Oct 28th 2008
From Economist.com

House prices in America fall yet again

THOSE looking for an end to America's housing bust will have to wait a little longer. Although sales of new homes rose slightly in September, prices are continuing to fall fast. On Tuesday October 28th the S&P/Case-Shiller index of house prices for ten cities showed a record decline of 17.7% in the year to September. The index has now fallen nearly three times as far as it did during the last big dip in 1991. The broader 20-city index has also touched a new low, sinking by 16.6%. Some observers think that house prices could continue to drop until the middle of next year.

Great Minds Have Similar Thoughts

Champions aren't made in gyms, champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
-Muhammad Ali

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
- Terry Pratchett

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
- Bertrand Russell

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
- Trey Parker and Matt Stone

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
- Oscar Wilde

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
- Charles M. Schulz

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.
- Carl Becker

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
- Mark Twain

"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone." So said Benjamin Franklin more than 200 years ago. How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you--if you don't play, you can't win.
- Robert Heinlein

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
- Malcolm Forbes

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
- Thomas Mann

No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.
- Elbert Hubbard

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
- Mary Wilson Little

Books to the ceiling,/ Books to the sky,/ My pile of books is a mile high./ How I love them! How I need them!/ I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel

Leif Ostling said in a statement that his comments about Germany had been "interpreted in a way that was not intended."

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
- Sir Francis Bacon

"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting."
- Tom Stoppard

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
- Franklin P. Adams

Invention is the mother of necessity.
- Thorstein Veblen

Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
- Philip K. Dick

Das Loreleylied

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabey;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer, im kleinen Schiffe,
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh´.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lore-Ley getan.

Heinrich Heine, 1823

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Thursday, October 30, 2008