More bad news for the economy.

WASHINGTON - The prolonged slump in housing pushed construction of new homes in 2007 down by the largest amount in 27 years with the expectation that the downturn has further to go.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction was started on 1.353 million new homes and apartments last year, down 24.8 percent from 2006. It was the second biggest annual decline on record, exceeded only by a 26 percent plunge in 1980, a period when the Federal Reserve was pushing interest rates to post-World War II records in an effort to combat an entrenched inflation problem.

Many economists believe that the current slump in housing will rival the dive in the late 1970s and early 1980s when housing construction fell for four straight years before beginning to recover after the severe 1981-82 recession. For December, construction fell by a bigger-than-expected 14.2 percent.

Source

Just another nail in the stable economy coffin.

It's hitting our economy up here pretty hard. One lumber mill has just closed down and won't reopen until market conditions change, and another mill just did a 4 month layoff. Not good at all.

Did you see that Bush has a plan and the markets still fell, not a good indication, at all.

Yea, his economic package isn't going to do much for the housing market. It seems more in line with durable goods.

The tax rebate thing will help for maybe a month, after that we will be back to struggling.

It's just a band-aid policy to make it look like he is doing something. Nothing much will be different other than taxpayers get shorted another $150 billion.

The housing crisis is hitting people in several different ways. Tumbleweed's right - this is a band-aid at best. I don't see the economy getting better for quite some time, regardless of what anyone does. The damage has already been done.

25%!!!? I don't know how I missed this post before. That really sucks.

What are we leaving the next president?

Well, by the looks of the leading economic indicators, a recession.

Or possibly a depression.

I haven't heard many folks utter the D word yet.