Week in Review

Friday DJ plunge
The Dow tumbles more than 240 points after the Labor Department reports the weakest jobs data in four years. Investors also weigh comments from former Fed chief Alan Greenspan about volatility in the stock market.

Country Wide cute more jobs
Reacting to a meltdown in the subprime housing market, the largest U.S. home-mortgage lender is expected to announce plans to reduce its work force over the next several months by about 20 percent. This is in the wake of the Bank of America bailout. What's next?

Home prices have fallen in 1/3 of the metropolitan areas in America over the past three months. How are values where you live? If you are trying to sell now, you may want to be very careful the time is bad. On one street in Cuyahoga County, OH there are 9 houses for sale.

The mortgage "bubble", while it has not you extended into the Prime markets, it has made its way into the creative market. Even high value homes are loosing their value and people are loosing their homes. What happened was that years ago, a man with a 680 credit score could either take a standard mortgage on a 3 bedroom, $250,000 home or he could take a "creative" mortgage and move into a 5 bedroom 1/2 million dollar home. In short prices are falling, and falling fast.

Fed to cut rate?
NEW YORK (AP) - The arrival of September was supposed to bring more clarity to the economic impact of the current credit crisis. Instead, each new bit of data coming out seems to be creating more confusion.

The first labor market contraction in four years, as revealed Friday in a weaker-than-expected jobs report, shows that the housing and mortgage collapse is putting some strain on the economy. And the continued dislocation in commercial paper markets, where companies raise cash to fund their operations, should be taken as a warning sign - in flashing red - that more bad news may be coming.

Yet plenty of good economic news still stands out. Strong August sales results from retailers and manufacturers suggest the painful credit crunch's effect on the broader U.S. economy has been limited so far.

Anyone hoping that Federal Reserve policymakers will reduce the overnight bank borrowing rate when they meet on Sept. 18, should not ignore the positive signs the economy is giving.