U.S.: Slowing residential real estate (focus on Detroit area)

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Headline: Time is on the buyer's side: Unlike last year, a for-sale sign doesn't mean a house will sell instantly

Source: Detroit Free Press, 29 July 2001

URL: http://www.freep.com/realestate/renews/value29_20010729.htm

Joyce Dixon has a terrific house in Detroit's Rosedale Park -- a yard with big arching trees, four bedrooms, a library, a fireplace, two full baths, two half baths, an updated kitchen, a new roof and central air-conditioning. But this week her real estate agent was hanging an addition to the for-sale sign in front of Dixon's house. It's an extra flap that attaches easily, and these days attaches often to a for-sale sign. The extra flap says "price reduced." Dixon has dropped her price from $225,000 to $214,000.

These signs are a sight that chills home sellers and cheers house buyers. Two years ago, they were rarely seen; today, more real estate agents are keeping a supply in their trunks.

The Free Press Quarterly House Value Report asked the obvious question: Is our house market melting in the summer heat? Analyzing sales figures for 2001 so far, we found an odd contradiction.

On one hand, home sellers have a perception that sales are slow. You hear comments like: "My neighbor's house has been for sale two months now, and he hasn't had a good offer."

But on the other hand, prices in the Detroit area keep going up, as they have for years. And the numbers say that house sales have not dropped by much.

For example, compared to 2000 -- which was a terrific sales year -- the number of houses sold in Oakland County is down 6 percent so far this year. In Macomb County, it's 5.5 percent. In Wayne County, it's just 2 percent. That is not enough to define a slow market, especially after a very good year.

So why do house sellers perceive the market as slow? Why do house buyers feel relaxed and empowered? There are three reasons:

· First, though opinions differ on the cause, a lot more houses are listed for sale. In Macomb County, the number of houses listed for sale is up 27 percent. In Oakland County, listings are up 15 percent; in Wayne County, up 23 percent. This means a smaller percentage of would-be sellers will complete a sale. Meanwhile, would-be buyers have more choices and feel less competition.

· Second, this is a moody market that varies from one price range to the next and sometimes from one news report to the next.

· Third, we have had it good. Really good. This is not to indulge in blame-the-victim, but a fact we've been able to ignore for a while.

Those two-day or two-week deals were a temporary bubble, experienced agents say. But they have skewed our view of selling houses. "The days on market now are a little longer, and sellers get impatient," says Dan Elsea, president of broker services at Real Estate One, which has 35 offices around Michigan. "But traditionally it takes two to three months to sell a house. "I think what we're seeing is not so much a true slowdown in the market as a natural settling."

At Century 21 Town & Country, which has 10 offices in metro Detroit, president John Kersten agrees that the recent buying frenzy was a fluke. "All I know is, traditionally it takes a little more more marketing to sell a house."

Real estate agents are nearly unanimous, however, on the fact that the high-end house market is down. "We have a lot of auto-related business in our market," says Richard Charbonneau, broker at ERA Classic Real Estate in Fraser. "They haven't really cut jobs much," he says, "but people get cautious with their dollars when the Big Three talk about cutting.

"We have a lot of people sitting in the $150,000 house, thinking about the $250,000 house," he says, "and they decide to wait." As a result, this is an ideal time to be someone poised to buy an expensive house. Your choices will be wide and you can probably find a bargain.

Making money But aside from the sagging high-price market, the metro Detroit house sale trends seem mixed and fairly benign. The No. 1 question for most readers -- those who stayed put in their house this year -- will be this: Did my house make or lose money?

You made money. As is almost always true, metro Detroit house prices continued to rise faster than inflation. At the end of June 2001, they were typically 4 percent to 6 percent higher than in June 2000.

Unlike the East Coast and West Coast, our house market is rarely derailed. That strength becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since we believe house prices will go up, we feel safe investing in them.

Teri Spiro, president of the Western Wayne Oakland County Association of Realtors, says she believes home buying has stayed so constant here for many years because it's the most stable investment. "The stock market has been very volatile," says Spiro. "Bank interest has been very low. In real estate, people are getting a return on their money that's so much higher and it's so low risk. I've been in the business 12 years and I can't think of one community that has gone down."

Low-end trends Continuing the trend of the past 18 months, the strongest part of metro Detroit's house market is the entry-level house and the next tier up. That's true whatever the starter home is in different geographic markets, Elsea says.

In the Grosse Pointes, for example, it's Grosse Pointe Woods that includes the most moderate-priced houses -- the Grosse Pointes' closest thing to a starter home. The average house price is about $255,000 there; it's more than $300,000 in the rest of the Pointes. And it's Grosse Pointe Woods that took the big jump in house prices this year, a sign of strong demand. With virtually no new house building to give prices an artificial boost, the average sale price was up almost 16 percent.

In south Oakland County, Ferndale -- which has cute starter neighborhoods at prices that are still affordable -- took the highest jump -- up 12 percent in the past year. Prices in Oak Park, another affordable and cute town, went up almost 9 percent. In Macomb County, the recently rediscovered historic town of Mt. Clemens saw the average price jump almost 10 percent on the city's affordable housing stock.

"For first-time buyers, an example of a market that has skyrocketed is Redford Township," says Spiro, "even in the last six months."

Shop carefully What's the wise move to make if you want to buy a house? Realize that you can take time to be a careful shopper. There will still be buyer competition, but not the pressure of two years ago, when you might have found yourself in a bidding war. If you are buying in a price range that is average or higher for the area you're in, says Charbonneau, realize that you probably have a good opportunity to negotiate the price.

For example, Shelby Township, Macomb Township and Chesterfield Township have a good supply of unsold houses in the $200,000s and $300,000s, Charbonneau says. "It's a matter of supply and demand, and there's a slight bit of oversupply right now in that price range."

Finally, you may find a good price on a new house if you buy one that's already built. Builders need a long lead time to build their spec, or speculative, houses and can't call them off if the market slows. Some have more pre-built inventory than they like to carry and would like to get them off the books.

What's the wise move to make if you want to sell a house? Set the price realistically by comparing it to recent sales in your neighborhood. And remember you have competition now, so make your house look sharp. "Buyers don't want a project," says Charbonneau. "They want something they can move into."

Tennitia Wilson, an agent at Real Estate One in Detroit, who specializes in northwest Detroit including Rosedale Park, agrees. "The houses that are priced right and are in good condition, they are selling right away. They'll sell in the first 30 days." Spiro, an associate broker at Century 21 Town & Country in West Bloomfield, works a great deal in higher-priced west-side communities like West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Plymouth and Commerce Township.

These are not starter house communities, but move-up communities that that attract many out-of-state transferees. To sell there, Spiro says, remember that transferees have one or two days to find a house. "The one thing that's most critical is, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. If your house is not priced perfectly," she says, "you miss the opportunity to sell to people who are only in for a day or two."

Spiro says she doesn't like a seller to say, "Well, if it doesn't sell in a month or two, I'll lower the price."

"The most important thing I tell sellers is, you will net more on your home if you sell it in the first 30 days. So price it right at the very beginning."

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), July 31, 2001

Answers

I posted this article because I have become increasingly aware that the next bubble to pop will be in residential real estate. The collapse is apparently well under way in commercial real estate in some markets -- Silicon Valley, S.F., and some of the commercial corridors outside Denver, Boulder, and Atlanta, or so I have been reading recently. But it seems to me the residential markets are acting like yet another equity bubble, with insane price moves that don't correspond to physical realities.

When this residential real estate bubble collapses -- it may now be on the edge as shown by overall slowing rate of sales, and a decrease at the high-end of the market and in second "vacation" homes -- we'll be in the endgame for sure. Too many people in the U.S. have too much riding on their houses now.

Just my nickel's worth.

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), July 31, 2001.


here's more, from today's The Daily Reckoning:

Headline: HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU REALLY NEED?

Source: The Daily Reckoning, Paris, France, Tuesday, 31 July 2001

URL: http://www.dailyreckoning.com/home.cfm?

[begin excerpt]

... I spent the better part of the last two weeks in California -- ground zero of the dot.com disaster -- and I can report seeing very few signs of toxic economic fallout. Indeed this morning's San Franciso Chronicle headline proclaimed, "Tax Revenue Leaps with Home Values."

Of course, most of this "good news" is rear-looking. The Chronicle writes, "Last year's red-hot real estate market pushed the Bay Area's overall property values to record heights -- and now county tax collectors are raking in the riches...[A]ssessed values on property rolls jumped more than $75 billion in the nine Bay Area counties."

Unfortunately, property taxes for the newly-assessed homeowners will now rise just as their property values are starting to fall.

The local Marin Independent Journal reports that May's median home price in Marin County was 11.3% below the April median home price -- "the largest single month-to- month decline in several years." The median home price in the tiny Marin County hamlet of Mill Valley plunged 35% in June from May levels.

Across the Golden Gate Bridge, the residential rental market in San Francisco is feeling the heat, too. The number of apartments available for rent has increased 600% since Labor Day of 2000. As with the tech bubble, it looks like “the Valley” is already showing leadership with respect to real estate... in the wrong direction. ...

[end excerpt]

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), July 31, 2001.


Prices are still strong in the Twin Cities. A local story tells of a couple who looked at a three-bedroom two-story house two years ago listed for $120,000. But they didn't qualify and waited until this year. They got a two bedroom rambler for $148,000.

Median home price has leaped from $145,400 in June of 1999 to $183,000 this June, a 26% increase.

-- John Littmann (johntl@mtn.org), July 31, 2001.


Here in Central Iowa, were starting to notice real estate market slumps. In our neighborhood, a house would not last on the market for more than a week at most. Several now, have been for sale for several months. In NW Des Moines, there are some houses that have been on the market for almost 6 months, nice houses too. suzy

-- suzy (Itssuzy2@aol.com), July 31, 2001.

The end of any economic boom is always characterized by a blow-off in residential real estate. For some reason it's always the big ticket consumer buyer who doesn't get it - until it's too late.

-- Wellesley (wellesley@freeport.net), August 01, 2001.


End of an Era [excerpts, concerning the Real Estate Bubble]

Doug Noland, The Credit Bubble (www.prudentbear.com), 27 July 2001

...June new home sales were reported today at an annualized rate of 922,000 units, up 17% year over year, and easily on pace for a record year. Wednesday the National Association of Realtors reported another booming month of existing home sales, with June sales up 3% from very strong year ago levels. This was the fifth strongest month on record, with average (mean) prices jumping $6,600 during the month to $190,200. Average prices have surged $15,600 over the past four months, and are up $30,000 (19%) during the past 30 months. Median prices jumped $7,200 during June and are up 8.8% year over year, the strongest annual increase since 1991. Doing the dollar transaction volume calculation (annualized sales volume multiplied by average prices), we see June sales dollars up 9% year over year. June transaction dollars ran 25% above June 1998, 57% above 1997, and 71% above 1996.

This is one spectacular Bubble in real estate finance. While increasing, the inventory of unsold homes remains quite lean at 3.8 months.

The California Association of Realtors (CAR) reported the strongest month of sales so far this year, with median prices in the state up $23,861 over the past 12 months, a 9.8% increase. Condo prices have jumped 12.6% to $209,830. All seventeen California regions have experienced positive price gains during the year, with nine enjoying double-digit increases. While no comparison to last year, average prices have nonetheless increased $23,160 during the past year in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is, however, worth noting that sales volumes decreased 6.4% from last year. Inventory remains low at 3.6 months, with it taking on average 26 days to sell a home (down from last year’s 30 days). Leslie Appleton-Young from the CAR stated: "We’re continuing to see a divergence between the Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area residential real estate markets. The Bay Area market posted double-digit declines across the board. Southern California, in contrast, experienced less of a decline in sales. In the more affordable Riverside/San Bernardino region, sales were up 20 percent."

The San Jose Mercury News (using sales information from DataQuick) reported that sales in the Greater San Francisco Bay area (10 counties) were down 17% from last June. Interestingly, prices were up 7% year over year to $391,000. Only Santa Clara County reported a decline, with prices down 0.4% to $473,000 (although sales plummeted 25%.) Prices in Napa have jumped 26% to $314,000, with double-digit gains for Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Solano counties. Median prices are up 5% in Marin to $595,000. From the article: "In contrast to most months in 2000, when median prices soared 25% and higher compared with the year before, increases this year mostly have been more modest..." Silicon Valley apartment rents have declined 7%, with "high-amenity properties" down from 18 to 25%.

From this week’s news release from the Florida Association of Realtors (PRNewswire): "It’s summertime and the housing market in Florida continued to sizzle..." Sales were up 7% from very strong year ago numbers. Median statewide prices jumped 9% to $132,500, "translating to a 39.9% increase over the five-year period." By major metropolitan area, year over year prices were up 22% in Miami, 16% in Fort Lauderdale, and 15% in Jacksonville, Gainesville and Orlando. Quoting a real estate executive, "a couple of things are fueling the increase in home sales... with the uncertainty of the stock market over the last year, people are looking to invest in real estate instead of stocks."

Yesterday’s article from the Boston Herald began "call it the Massachusetts home sales miracle...overall, sales of detached single- family homes shot up 36% in June...condo sales also surged, rising 23.9%..." Median home prices rose 2.6% during the month to $311,051, as condo prices jumped 10% to $221,190. Over the past year, prices have been rising at double-digit rates throughout the state, with prices up 16% in Greater Boston (first quarter y-o-y). Over this period condo prices rose almost 17%.

From the Q&A session of Alan Greenspan’s July 24th Testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing Affairs Committee:

Colorado Senator Wayne Allard: "Chairman Greenspan, I think you would agree with me that housing has played a significant role in our economy historically, and it continues to play a significant role today. And these are not necessarily high-tech jobs. And I wondered if you could ... make any comment in your remarks about housing. I just wondered if you could maybe elaborate on the trends for housing prices, spending on residential structures, and mortgage interest rates.

Chairman Greenspan: "Senator, I think one of the things that’s occurring in this country is the evolution of housing into a very sophisticated, complex industry, in the sense that we not only have got standard home building aspects of homeownership-related activities, but we're also beginning to find that as homeownership rises and as the market value of homes continues to rise, even in a period when stock prices are falling, we’re observing a rather remarkable employment of that so-called home equity wealth in all sorts of household decisions."

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh: "…with regard to Senator Allard’s question, my final question, with regard to home equity. This has been a good thing for the American economy and temporarily helpful in addressing the consumer issue and the current sluggishness. My question to you is, since it has historically been a significant percentage of household savings, is this a worrisome long-term trend, people drawing down their home equity substantially?"

Chairman Greenspan: "…If unrealized capital gains were declining, which is, of course, what happens when you extract equity from homes, yes, it would be a problem. But there is no evidence of that. Indeed, despite the fact of the significant extraction of home equity gains, the level of unrealized capital gains in homes continues to rise apace. So it's not a depleting asset, if I may put it that way. It could be, but fortunately it is not."

Here we go again; another dangerous Bubble and another pathetic example of either flawed analysis or obfuscation from our Federal Reserve Chairman. With the Fed having for years studied asset Bubbles, and especially after the bursting of the technology Bubble, there is today absolutely no excuse for misreading the expanding real estate Bubble. Admittedly, the technology Bubble, while conspicuous in many ways, was at the same time rather complex - especially in regard to underlying credit excess and related processes and distortions, particularly in the telecom and Internet sectors. While we protested, Greenspan was at the time able to state without general protest that it is not possible to recognize a bubble until after the fact (music to the ears for those propagating Bubble excess!). But the current real estate bubble is straightforward: enormous lending excess – especially by the government-sponsored enterprises – leading to rising prices, overconsumption, overborrowing, and severe economic distortions and imbalances. After all, why would we not expect real estate inflation with the government-sponsored enterprises increasing lending by about $1 trillion during the past three years?

There is now no doubt that mortgage finance is the heart and soul of the Great American Credit Bubble, as well as being the inevitable Achilles heel of a vulnerable U.S. Bubble economy. It is also true that real estate has increasingly become the dominant underlying collateral for the U.S. monetary system. This is a dangerous game, and I regret that I am again compelled to accuse chairman Greenspan of gross negligence for his role in this monetary fiasco. Who is minding the store? While it clearly serves his purpose today, the negative consequences of continued mortgage credit excess will be enormous down the road. Long ago economists recognized that to back a monetary system with land was asking for trouble, creating a mechanism with a strong proclivity toward inflationary excess.

Quoting Charles Rist: "One other of [John] Law’s ideas deserves our attention for a moment, that of securing money on land. It is an idea which recurs periodically among currency cranks" (History of Monetary and Credit Theory From John Law to The Present Day, 1940). As we are witnessing currently, an inflationary increase in money and credit fuels higher real estate prices, additional collateral value to borrow against, and only more self-feeding inflationary credit creation.

Rising prices also have a major dampening impact on defaults and credit losses. Obviously, a homeowner will sell a home and capture capital gains before he allows foreclosure. This, as we have seen with Fannie Mae and others, leads to a dramatic reduction in provisions for future losses, thus overstating true mortgage-lending profits. These seemingly rich and easily achieved "profits" (especially with major credit losses elsewhere) only entice a redirection of lending activity to real estate (as we see with previous telecom lending behemoths JPMorgan and Bank of America) and an influx of aggressive new participants (similar to the proliferation of companies during the tech bubble). Obviously, such keen interest from the lending community only exacerbates the real estate Bubble, as they compete in an asset Bubble environment with virtually limitless lending opportunities. Minimal boom-time lending losses also lead to an underpricing of mortgage insurance, which acts to increase the availability of mortgage credit, especially for those with minimal savings or those seeking to fully extract price gains.

Most importantly, artificially low credit losses and surging industry accounting profits add to the perception of the safety of mortgage- back and agency securities. This, in concert with significant losses experienced in equities, telecom and corporate debt, leads to a major push into mortgage-related securities by investors and the momentous speculating community. And, importantly, with the contemporary credit mechanism functioning with unlimited capability for monetary expansion, demand for literally $100’s of billions of new borrowings can be easily accommodated with no pressure on interest rates (despite negative household savings!). Now that is not your grandfather’s Credit system (or your father’s or older sister’s)! In fact, as we have witnessed, interest rates may very well decline in the midst of unprecedented demand for mortgage borrowings. It should be recognized that such a pricing relationship between credit demand and supply is not prone to either correct imbalances or gravitate toward equilibrium – but the exact opposite. Especially with the GSEs and their implied government guarantees, an unlimited supply of mortgage lending is easily transformed into increased money market fund deposits and other monetary assets.

It is a central dictum of Credit Bubble analysis that credit losses grow exponentially during the final "terminal stage" of excess. This contention is certainly supported by the enormous credit losses being suffered currently throughout the telecom sector. This industry experienced its "terminal stage" of excess during 1998 and 1999, with a veritable explosion of lending and associated spending and speculative excesses. The problem with these loans today – many having found a home in Wall Street "structured products" (such as the CDOs that have created huge losses for American Express and others) – is that not only are defaults much greater than were expected, investor recoveries after bankruptcy or workout are often a fraction of what models would have anticipated. This is a key aspect of lending excess during this extraordinary cycle, as the explosion of credit severely distorts the underlying economics of entire industries (economies). With telecom, it fueled the great "Communications Arms Race," with devastating consequences for the profitability and financial position of the entire industry. Not only did it ensure major losses for most participants (note JDS Uniphase’s $50 billion loss), it also created incredible overcapacity and today’s disastrous business environment all along the technology "food chain." During the boom, it was not appreciated that the telecom lending Bubble had set in motion precarious industry spending dynamics that would become apparent as soon as a bursting bubble abruptly terminated the keys to the entire process: unlimited credit availability and massive speculative flows.

Similar lending and speculation dynamics in the consumer finance sector continue to have major distorting effects on the consumption- based U.S. economy. As the manufacturing sector continues to go to seed, investment distortions foster unrelenting spending excess in household and consumption structures. Further, the consumer lending bubble is perpetuating the enormous trade deficits and the accumulation of massive foreign liabilities. Yet admittedly, as long as these "Bubble Dollars" are "recycled" directly back to the U.S. financial sector (a process augmented by aggressive international borrowing by the GSEs, U.S. money center banks, and Wall Street firms, as well as what are surely enormous "Hot Money" flows from the global "leveraged speculating community), the process appears to function wonderfully for the dollar and all concerned (like the 1999 tech bubble).

Let there be no doubt, however, that continued excess is only ensuring the inevitability of major debt problems for the U.S. household sector, its lenders and the U.S. financial system. But for now, as long as continued reckless mortgage credit excess supports rising home prices - which buttresses consumer spending, keeps the consumption-based U.S. economy levitated, and fuels continued wage gains - the debt levels don’t look exceedingly onerous to those of a bullish persuasion. And, as we have witnessed repeatedly, if the aggressive lending community has any window whatsoever, they will merrily continue to advance new credit. This is precisely why we have warned repeatedly that asset inflation is terribly seductive and dangerous.

Alarmingly, U.S. consumer debt Bubble dynamics are increasingly reminiscent of the LDC (less-developed country) debt Bubble from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back then it was general U.S. inflation, the oil shocks, and a flood of "petrodollars" "recycled" back to the U.S. multinational banks that were at the heart of critical lending Bubble processes. With the perception of great profit opportunities and limited default risk ("sovereign nations don’t go bankrupt!") these "recycled" dollars were lent aggressively (until the Bubble burst!) to the LDCs, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Today, it’s largely mortgage credit inflation, massive American trade deficits, and the resulting "Bubble Dollars" this time "recycled" right back to high- yielding U.S. consumer debt instruments and related securities/instruments... ...For those of you that missed it, Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal included a must read article "Refinancing Is Sustaining Spending, But Do Dangers Lurk in the Details?" This article, coming the day after Greenspan’s testimony, should send shockwaves through the Federal Reserve. Homeowners refinancing to "splurge on ‘some goodies.’" A couple borrowing $55,000 - based on a 26% increase in appraised value in 18-months - which they "sank into vacation-and-investment property." Another couple has repeatedly used refinancings to purchase items such as a big screen TV, while their "credit card debt grew to more than $40,000." A retired engineer from Arizona extracted $100,000 to build a vacation home, after plans to use profits from his stock portfolio were sunk with the market. An Arizona flight attendant extracted $70,000 and is "investing in the stock market and considering buying another home for investment purposes…now, her goal is to turn her cash-out windfall into $250,000 over the next 10 to 15 years."

From the WSJ: "There are lots of theories about why home prices are defying gravity…" including "lenders are egging on potential buyers by aggressively hawking mortgage loans, whose fees are helping offset shrinking profits from commercial lending." "To some economists, the popularity of cash-out refinancing suggests Americans are growing more financially sophisticated (what?). Frank Nothaft, an economist at Freddie Mac, one of the two big governments-sponsored mortgage companies, says consumers are acting more like corporations, which refinance their debt whenever possible to reduce costs or fund new spending." Ponder for a moment how long it would take that flight attendant to save $70,000 from her after-tax income. Would she be speculating in the stock market had it not been for the major real estate inflation and the ease of equity extraction? How many are taking advantage of real estate inflation and mortgage interest deductibility to fund their retirement accounts or otherwise speculate in the markets? What are the ramifications for financial market liquidity when this mortgage refi boom runs its course? How about when the mortgage finance Bubble is pierced? Would that couple have let their credit card balances rise to $40,000 if they didn’t perceive perpetual home equity to borrow against? What will be the impact on spending and credit losses when home prices stop rising? And how about the great number of individuals using extracted equity as down payment for vacation home or investment property mortgages? How about those using inflated home equity to move up to more expensive homes? Could there be clearer examples of credit excess begetting credit excess?

Despite this weird environment with the Greenspan Fed fully supporting consumer credit excess, this Bubble could not be more conspicuously precarious. We are, unfortunately, destined to find out one of these days (when this Bubble bursts) that this last bout ("terminal stage") of reckless mortgage lending has greatly increased the vulnerability of the consumer and financial sectors to enormous losses, with profound ramifications for the U.S. financial system and economy. It will make the problems associated with the telecom debt collapse look minor in comparison. And for those questioning the validity of real estate Bubble analysis, it is worth recognizing that during the past three years (1998 through 2000) total mortgage lending increased $1.657 trillion, just over double the $817.2 billion lent the preceding three years. If, as looks likely, net additional mortgage borrowings reach $600 billion this year, total mortgage lending will have expanded an astonishing $2.26 trillion, or 43%, in just four years. John Law would be proud.

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), August 01, 2001.


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