TIME magazine pulls their REIC-sponsored head out of their ass and writes for the first time about the Great Housing Crash

Hey, it's only been two years. Nice to see America's most trusted weekly news magazine FINALLY write about the biggest story in the land.

HP MEMO TO TIME MAGAZINE EDITORS - YOU'RE INCOMPETENT AT BEST, CORRUPT AT WORST, AND YOU ARE IRRELEVANT. YOU MISSED ONE OF THE BIGGEST STORIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY, AND NOW, IT'S TOO LATE. YOU SUCK.

I'd give you more of their story here, but they add nothing to the debate and nothing to the story. If you subscribe to TIME magazine, you should cancel, and subscribe to a REAL news magazine, like The Economist, or better yet the daily Financial Times. TIME magazine is a joke. People-Magazine-like joke. A Screech-from-Saved-By-the-Bell-type-joke. A Hi-my-name-is-Scotter-Libby-type joke.

TIME Magazine FINALLY allows a housing crash article into their fine magazine (chuckle chuckle): "The value of our homes is collapsing"

I still can't believe these yahoos at TIME haven't put the housing crash or current debt crisis on their cover yet. Even from a business perspective, since the housing crash effects nearly every person in America, seems like they'd want to sell a few magazines.

But like the NAR, I think TIME is run by monkeys.

Anyway, here's their first article on the housing crash, kinda, since it's listed as "commentary". Hey, it's a first step. Anyone want to guess when we finally get the cover?

Your House Is Worth Less? Good

The last time we had this feeling of financial vertigo was when the Internet bubble popped seven years ago. But this is much worse: the value of our homes is collapsing. For generations, rising home prices have been central to our general sense of well-being.

So why is the real estate collapse a good thing?

First, because the collapse of any financial bubble can be interpreted as a morality play: greed gets its comeuppance. Subprime mortgages play the role that used to be played by junk bonds. They represent easy money--too easy, in retrospect. Borrowed money, if it gets out of hand, puts economic history on speed: everything rises faster, then collapses harder. Foolish lenders become the enablers of foolish borrowers.

In the 1990s, people came to believe that stock prices would rise forever. They learned differently. And now we are learning differently about real estate as well. Whenever the price people will pay today depends on the belief that other people will pay even more tomorrow, you've got a bubble. It takes only a slight letdown in those expectations to send the whole delightful, self-feeding process into reverse.

more here...

So when Time magazine FINALLY puts the housing crash on the cover...

Does anyone find it weird that the housing crash was the biggest business story in 2006 (per the AP), and has completely overtaken the MSM and the dinner table for the past six months or so - nearly every day in the USA Today, Financial Times, Arizona Republic, New York Times, etc....

And yet Time magazine has done almost zero housing crash or subprime disaster reporting. And when they do it's a fluff piece or terrible reporting. And not a single cover since their now-hilarious going goo-goo for housing piece.

So what's up? Are they embarrassed? Are they corrupt? Or are they just Bush-like-incompetent? Does Time Warner take so much REIC advertising $$ that they don't want to admit the truth? Does Richard Parsons, Time Warner CEO, have some kind of strange REIC connection?

Something just doesn't make sense. Every issue for the past year should have had an article about the housing bubble / housing crash / REIC meltdown / subprime disaster. And at least four or five covers by now.

So what the hell is going on?

When Time FINALLY puts the housing crash on the cover, any predictions on what it'll say?

Time magazine is getting closer to that long-predicted "oops, housing crashed" cover...

Hey, someone woke up a writer at Time magazine this week! They actually ran a housing bubble story - go figure. And a really really poor one at that. But hey, it's a start.

We're still waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for that make-good cover. . After all, the housing crash is the biggest story in the country today, and did win the AP business story of 2006. But I guess Time didn't notice that.

What do you think HP'ers, will Time run maybe one of these this summer?

"Our bad - you shouldn't have gone ga-ga for real estate. Sorry!"

"The Great Housing Ponzi Scheme Has Ended"

"Housing Crash"

Here's Time's naive silly little story today (thanks HP'ers for the tip):

Will The Housing Bubble Burst in 2007?

Since early 2000, economists have been sounding the housing bubble alarm with increasing urgency. And while many markets around the country have seen prices drop in the last year, the dire, across-the-board correction that many predicted has yet to materialize.

There are several factors that could cause a real estate bubble to burst, but the most important factor, one that is sometimes overlooked, is buyer and seller sentiment-how we feel about what's likely to be the biggest windfall, or biggest purchase, of our lives.

Our real estate search and browsing patterns provide a window into the minds of buyers and sellers and offer more than a glimpse of their feelings about the current market. Take for example the simple search for "housing bubble." As bad news continues to build around the housing market, you would expect that "housing bubble" searches would be nearing a crescendo. Actually, the opposite is true.

As of the week ending February 17th 2007, searches for "housing bubble" have reached a two year low, only 4.4% of the searches on the same subject that occurred during the second week of June 2005. A media frenzy around a pending correction occurred that very same week, which demonstrates just how suggestible we are, as well as how short our attention spans can be.

Despite the impasse that the data is painting, in the depths of the search tables for this last week are a few terms to keep an eye on, such as "sell my house fast," and "how to stop a foreclosure." If those reach significant volume, signaling an urgency to sell, the housing bubble alarm might finally ring true.