The sub prime bailout is a major theme with this week's bubble blogs. Rancid truth asks "how much will it cost to rescue those financially illiterate cretins who were so-called "bamboozled" and "hoodwinked" into sub-prime mortgage loans by mortgage brokers and realtors in order to purchase homes that they could otherwise never afford? How about $US 120 Billion?"

OC fliptrack highlights one of those horrific flips-gone-bad in Orange county. This particular flipper has cut his price from $589,000 to $515,000. It reminds me of a line from the first (fourth) Star Wars movie - "I don't care what universe you are from, that has gotta hurt".

Congratulations to Young and Broke, who got a mention in the Your Money section in Sunday's Tribune in Gregory Karp's "Spending Smart" column.

The "mess that Greenspan made" has a scathing piece on the over-optimistic interpretation of recent inflation data "After Friday's report on Producer Prices, in which the overall monthly increase of 1.0 percent followed February's gain of 1.3 percent and ignited a stock market rally based on "easing inflation concerns", it should be clear that the relationship between prices and investor outlook is completely dysfunctional." The piece points out how many central bankers rip up those sub indices that are rising, and then proclaim inflation is under control. Or as Tim puts it "Sure, when food and energy are stripped out, the result was no change from the month prior and this "core" rate of producer price inflation is purportedly a better indication of the underlying trend when these "volatile" components are removed."

It is good to see that the Baltimore Housing blog is up and running again.