Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Boom Winds Down So, mortgage rates shot up since the end of June; it seems the new-homes juggernaut is grinding to a halt. The rise is dramatic -- one of the steepest since 1979. Since the real estate market was regarded far and wide as one of the few pieces o' timber propping up the economy, I guess the question now is when the recovery will kick in, assuming there is going to be one.   Here in Maryland, as the Baltimore Sun reports, there's been no sign of a housebuying slowdown. But Maryland's anomalous -- a semi-protected economy that's been hurt less by recession and has benefitted atypically from the refi boom (though you wouldn't guess that from the forced starvation now being inflicted on social services and education by our deranged governor, Robert Ehrlich.) It's also a tiny state, with comparatively little land to build on and fairly strict anti-sprawl regulations. The result has been a buoyant seller's market, in which a house rarely goes for the listing price unless there's something seriously wrong with it -- ghosts, structual problems, an abandoned mineshaft underneath. Otherwise, forget it. 2:09:21 PM    comment [] The Beautiful Blue Danube Besides bringing river traffic to a halt, generating hundreds of thousands of euros in losses, and threatening the region with electricity shortages, the Danube's recent record-low water levels have also caused the resurfacing of WWII wreckage, including previously submerged jeeps and tanks from a 1943 battle between the Germans, the Red Army, and Yugoslav partisans. In addition, two sunken ships turned up earlier this month in the Romanian stretch of the river. All this comes just after an international commission announced it has finished clearing debris left over from a more recent spasm of violence, namely the Kosovo conflict four years ago. The WWII junk is further exacerbating the problem of blocked traffic, but the reappearing ships have reportedly been welcomed by Romanian kids, who are using them as diving boards. It's hard to think of another river that's seen more atrocities and brutality than the Danube. The NYT just ran the fourth installment of a series examining its troubled history and looking for signs of hope. 9:49:28 AM    comment []

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