New homes sales sprang back to life like a zombie in a cheap horror flick. And like that zombie, housing really is dead. Don't let all that twitching fool you.

It's got some weakness, but it's not an overpowering weakness. All the components are all reasonably firm. Clearly there is a weakening, but the momentum is not yet terrible. You can paint this as kind of a Goldilocks reading, not too hot, not too cold.

The situations have different issues. Here we're seeing a bending and stretching of the rules. Over there the rules are totally crushed. ...We have an accounting standards board and a fairly strict set of standards. Yes, we're seeing some problems. But by comparison they are nothing like the problems in Japan.

He is enough of a policy wonk to know that how you make change is very, very important. They will run models and simulations.

Housing is fundamentally doing better. I think it's doing better than what people are giving it credit for and I think it's going to continue to do better in 1997. But this particular number has a lot more to do with weather than with economics.

People have gotten used to the fact that gas prices come and go. If energy prices turn around, the impact will go the other way just as quickly. But the problem is the debt isn't going to go away.