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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Roads End who wrote (71249)	10/6/2006 5:30:41 PM
From: ild	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Greenspan Says `Worst' May Be Past in U.S. Housing (Update1) By Greg Quinn and Scott Lanman Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the ``worst may well be over'' for the U.S. housing market, which is seeing plunges in construction and sales and the first price declines in years. Greenspan, speaking at a conference in Calgary today, pointed to a ``flattening out'' of weekly mortgage applications after they went down ``very dramatically.'' Greenspan's comments on U.S. housing may represent a more sanguine view than his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, who said two days ago in Washington that the market is in a ``substantial correction'' that will lop about a percentage point off economic growth in the second half and restrain the expansion next year. The Fed vice chairman, Donald Kohn, a former top adviser to Greenspan, also said this week that while he doesn't know how long and deep the housing slump will be, it probably won't sink the U.S. economy into a recession. Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose last week by the most since June of last year as lower borrowing costs spurred home sales and refinancing, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Oct. 4. Since Greenspan, 80, retired from the Fed upon the expiration of his term in January, he has been giving paid talks to audiences around the world and writing a book to be released next year. On the appreciation of Canada's dollar, which has cost jobs in Ontario while Alberta has boomed on energy prices, Greenspan said that ``there is no way to get around this issue.'' ``There is no optimal resolution to this,'' Greenspan said. He said it's hard to find a practical way to sort out what economists call optimal currency zones. Greenspan said the two U.S. senators who last week agreed to drop their legislation to apply tariffs on Chinese goods had ``sensibly backed off.'' ``They have never expected to get a majority in the Senate'' and had pursued the legislation to put ``pressure'' on China, Greenspan said of Democrat Charles Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the two lawmakers.