It's a very intersesting time in financial hisory to say the least.   

"Real Estate prices in California down 43% (nearly half) "

That statement is taken slightly out of context since it doesn't specify the time period.  According to the C.A.R. report, the decline was 40.5% for August of 2008 vs. August of 2007. By the way, the same report also stated that sales increased 56.7%

It also depends on your perspective. If you look at real estate as a long term investment and take into account the longer cycles then the figure doesn't apply. The median price 10 years ago was $200,000 for homes in California.  So actually the statement  could also be written as "Real Estate prices in California up 75% in the last 10 years".

Gary, this headline style fodder that you employ is the kind of sensationalist media hype that drives a financial society based on emotion up and down. Congratulations for perpetuating the system.

Maybe a meltdown is what we need, we ned to have "Value" in america we need go back to manufacturing and bring jobs back here. Rebuild. Keep in mind we can fail as a super power loosing credibility in out fight for democracy, Russia would love to see that. The UN is pushing for a Global econmony NOT GOOD. Why are we the best country in the world in such as short time? free enterprise, A lot of socialist things are being proposed with this bail out and things at getting strange.

Gary loves the blog attention and smiles by getting everyone all riled up to I am sure a lot of things are said for impact but stuffing money in your mattress when no one else can get any from the bank makes it worthless. Keep looking at gold though.

@ShooterSteve - 

So I'm going to rewrite Gary's headlines to put a positive spin on things just to prove a point:

Gary's headline:

This is the largest bank failure in history - FDIC will need a bailout soon.
I would say bank deposits are risky at this point -
Next to go would be Wachovia - holy smokes WAMU gone.

Real Estate prices in California down 43% (nearly half) -

------------------------------------------

My Headline:

One of the largest banks in U.S. was acquired and FDIC makes $1.9 Billion on deal.

Bank deposits are not at risk to customers at this point -
Will Wachovia be a future buyer or seller of banks - holy smokes opportunities abound!

Real Estate prices in California up 75% in last ten years -

@qnetx - 

@qnetx - 

@fjblau - 

@fjblau - clearly they are driving their magical bus to heaven!

@TimRayPhoto - 

Gasoline is a prime example of supply and demand. The OPEC members control the supply and constantly strive to balance it so that they can derive the highest price without causing too much pain on their customers. They pushed the edge a few months ago and the U.S. consumers tightened up, thus dropping the demand. Once the demand dropped, OPEC dropped the price.

So the bottom line is to reduce the demand on petroleum, that would drop the prices. However, with large industrially emerging nations such as India and China, the demand for oil is rising at a pace that may not drop enough no matter how much we conserve in the U.S. But if we in the U.S. find alternative energy sources we can be less dependent on the oil "drug" and also become less dependent on large foreign nations and oil cartels.