In a message dated 11/30/2008 3:19:41 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Merlin, I think the problems are more in California and Florida, where house prices and sales were very high and New York (financials). I live in the middle of the country in Illinois, near Chicago, where home prices and sales were not so ridiculously inflated. The home sales market is slow here, but I would have to search for a home that was posted with a bank forclosure sign. The same is true with commercial real estate (businesses). They have slower sales, but haven't closed (yet???). People are concerned and jobs/employment will tell us what the future holds. Regards, Bob S.
============== I think Bob is overly optimistic, Merlin. I double checked the statistics, 10 million unemployed is correct. This comes from government figures. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 6.5 percent in October, and the number of unemployed persons increased by 603,000 to 10.1 million. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 2.8 mil- lion, and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points. That's one heck of a lot of people out of work. Yesterday, when I was taking some pictures, I went into a major department store. Not lower end. To get people to buy they had marked things down by 40-50%. Some real buys there if one wanted them. (I double checked the prices, unlike Circuit City, they really were discounted by that much.) Of course, I think the reason some people don't see it as bad as it really is is because of lack of media coverage. It is increasing all the time, but right now it is still minimal. Later, Marnie :-) --------------------------------------------- Warning: I am now filtering my email, so you may be censored. **************Life should be easier. So should your homepage. Try the NEW AOL.com. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000002) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
