Holy heck on a waffle cone, people.  Let me try to itemize the plethora of madness that has taken place since my last newsletter installment:

1) Tiger Woods crashed into a tree and then essentially admitted to marital “transgressions”.  Jerry!  Jerry!  Maybe just stick to the fairway next time, chief.

2) Global warming has been deemed an official hoax, which is awesome because now I can do my turn-a-can-of-hairspray-into-a-flamethrower trick at parties guilt-free.

3) Taking a page from Bush’s playbook, Obama has committed 30,000 more American troops to the cause of cleaning Al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan.  Hoo-rah.  Let’s go bust some heads.

4) I took down two full Thanksgiving meals, gained 5 pounds and have since guilted myself into start­ing the P90X workout program.  The words “Bring It” no longer make me happy.

And, despite the novels I could write on any of those topics, I’m going to discuss the economy.  Yup.  I’m just that committed to industry-specific topics.  If only they all were so laser-focused.

First off, mortgage rates hit a 38-year low last week, dipping below 4.75% on the average 30-year fixed.  Despite the Treasury ending their program to buy securities and keep rates down, they’ve stayed down all by themselves.  Continued weakness in job creation and overall global uncertainty seem to be the primary causes.

As many of you know, the 1st-time homebuyer tax credit was extended for any contract signed before April 30th and Closed before June 30th.  It was also expanded to include existing homeowners who want to move on up to a bigger place.  Yaaaaaay for governmental help

Ben Bernanke is enjoying another public flogging at the hands of Congress today as he tries to earn a second term as the Chairman of our Federal Reserve.  Now, I’m a believer in Big Ben and his mone­tary decisions to date, so I hope he gets it.  My guess is that they will keep him in his position purely because he’s the only one who can make some sense of our country’s tangled financial problems since he was there from essentially the beginning.  Best of luck to you, Ben.

Geithner came out on Monday and, in the style of Yosemite Sam, called all the banks a bunch of low-down rassa-frassa dirty no-good rootin’-tootin’ money lovers who aren’t helping enough troubled homeowners achieve permanent loan modifications.  While the spirit of what was said was well placed, there was very little as far as concrete threats or clear objectives in the speech aside from the somewhat arbitrary number of 375,000 loan mods by year’s end.  So, fingers crossed that something actually gets accomplished, but Swami-Greg doubts it.

Do me a huge favor right now and think about anyone you know who could benefit from my services.  Your referrals of friends, associates and family are the lifeblood of my business.  If you know someone who is house-hunting or even thinking about it, please pass their info over to me.  Even if you know someone who just talks a lot about the economy (as many tend to do these days) and you think they’d get value out of my newsletters, pass their info along.  I do my best to keep these newsletters as “sales free” as possible, but I do want you to remember that your help and referrals are my greatest strength.  Thanks for all you’ve done for me thus far, and thanks in advance for the referrals in the future!