Orange County Register - "Real estate woes cut deep" (12-16-07)

"After updates and revisions to key data, The Big O's losing streak now stretches back three quarters to last spring. That's the longest drought since recessionary times of 2001. These drops put The Big O down 1.6 percent in a year, the biggest decline since early 2002."

Ventura County Star - "Families finding struggle to stay in pricey state as economy softens" (12-16-07)

"A new state forecast from the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project finds that California will have to grapple with the shrinking size of its middle class. There's always a flow of people into and out of the state, said Dan Hamilton, director of economics for the Economic Forecast Project. But 'the middle age groups as well as the middle income groups are leaving just a little faster than other income groups,' he said."

Bloomberg - "Greenspan Favors Government Bailout for Homeowners" (12-16-07)

"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he favors spending U.S. government money to bail out mortgage borrowers who risk losing their homes because they can't make payments. Greenspan, speaking on ABC's 'This Week' program aired today, said cash bailouts, while creating a larger budget deficit, have the advantage of helping homeowners without distorting property prices or interest rates on mortgages."

Yahoo - "Hold tight, the central banks have no plan" (12-16-07)

"This has been the year when many deeply held beliefs have been challenged. One such belief was that central banks have the toolkit to sort out any conceivable economic or financial crisis. Last week's co-ordinated liquidity action by five central banks taught us that this is not the case. The idea was that a co-ordinated response would reassure the markets, but it had the opposite effect. It turned out that market participants are not infinitely stupid. They know by now that this is not a liquidity crisis at its core. If it had been, it would be over by now."

Forbes - "UBS expects further subprime writedowns of 4.5 bln sfr in Q1 - report" (12-16-07)

"UBS AG expects further subprime-related writedowns of 4.5 bln sfr in the first quarter of 2008, after announcing a writedown of 10 bln usd earlier this week, Swiss Sunday paper Sonntag reported."