Monday, April 20, 2009

Anecdotal Evidence

Relying on anecdotal evidence, The Washington Post is running a piece that is suggesting that the real estate markets are bottoming and the light at the end of the tunnel is not a freight train. This piece of cheerleading fluff does nothing but further erode the declining credibility of what was once one of the nation's leading news outlets.

The math and historical trends show that the bottom is no where in site, but why pay attention to the math, when you have anecdotal evidence? The article even seems to pay lip service to the recently received March housing statistics before dismissing them in lieu of anecdotal evidence.

Overall, I find this headline, "Housing Data Could Signal If Bust Is Over", from the Washington Post to be highly irresponsible.

2 comments:

Markus Arelius said...

The topic of Alt-A recasts, particularly for the Western US, has all but evaporated from the newsrooms. And this sucker is going to hit starting next freaking month and June!

It's the equivalent of a weatherman citing a category 4hurricane 100 miles off the coast and proceeding to give a "partly sunny" forecast for the next 24 hours.

I'm sorry, but how does one not call the collossal $63 BILLION dollars worth of mortgage loans recasting into hopelessness NOT NEWSWORTHY!??

There's only 2 explanations:

1.) Newsmedia employees are comprised of job-frightened idiots who cannot read at a 4th grade level nor perform basic math calculations without a calculator(hence the reason for No Child Left Behind legislation), and are otherwise completely inept at performing journalism.

-OR-

2.) The newsmedia is bought and paid for.

I submit that the real answer is both 1 and 2 combined.

Dead End said...

Its more likely that the media has taken the Obama administrations plan to bailout troubled debtors as gospel.