There again, day and night of a difference between our airlines and Europe’s.

I don’t want to sound pro-European, I am not but I am good at picking out things I don’t like living where I am.  So bare with me as I point out some things we got used to, we shouldn’t have.

I started flying in the 70s when it was a pleasure to fly and companies treated you with great care.  A far cry from our modern bankrupt poor service airlines.  I remember flying TWA, Pan Am and even Delta, when it was a good company then.  Now any flights across the US will get you drinks and peanuts, eternal reroutes and the abominable Atlanta jungle maze airport.  I only fly smaller airlines tat have much better services like, SouthWest, America West and JetBlue.

On my hour and a half flight from London to Nice, I got two drinks and two sandwich.

I feel our airlines are getting us used to poor service in the name of bankruptcies and saving money "due to high gas price".  Well, sorry but I pay for gas price at every corner of my life.  In this case, maybe they should also rework the millions of dollars they spend on their CEOs, etc, in order to be more efficient and stop hitting their most important asset?  Their clients.

NAR and the Center for Responsible Lending acknowledged the rapid increase of foreclosures defaults.  NAR believes some families don’t understand the risks with "exotic" mortgages.

Foreclosures don’t just hot families but also communities since problematic loans are often made in concentrated areas.  They can affect neighborhoods and community in many ways.

Click here for Calculated Risk’s blog.

The market is still very slow.   New home constructions went up 6.7% in November, after dropping 14% in October, according to the Commerce Department with building permits falling 3% to a nine-year low.  It is down 25.5% in the past year and 12.5% in the first 11 months of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005.

Building permits are considered to be an important indicator of the economy and with the housing market fell 3% is worrying some analysts.  Down 31.3% in the past year and 14.1% in the first 11 months of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005.

Another report from the Labor Department did not have better news when it found the producer price index rose 2% in November, while core prices at the wholesale level increased 1.3%, the biggest gain since 1980 and reversing October’s big decline.  This will not help kindle an already cool market. 

Never the less, we should be careful when analyzing numbers, as it can take five months for a trend to starts emerging from the data.  Not even the government can say that starts increased in November.

Starts fell 8.1% in the West to the lowest level in five years.

Here is the Real Estate Journal’s article.

Touchy, touchy, sensitive subject.  Even more so now than our Habeas Corpus has been tweaked.

Hum, where to start.  Europe has been mired in endless theoretical debates (you thought it only happened here?   ) for the past decades.  Some countries as France opened up their borders in the 70s and 80s to wild immigration and are only now becoming aware of the effects.  Italy and Spain are blissfully unaware as they get their first flux of wild immigration.

I found France in complete transition.  Our two countries are very similar, that’s why we love to hate and love each other in complete misunderstanding.  But France is changing.  I didn’t see the old politicians tat dragged down the country in sterile left-right debates.  I found two new revamped parties, one left, one right and remnants of the old schools desperately clinging on.

On the right, a very vibrant Nicolas Sarkozy who tells it like it is and looks to actually walk the walk.  On the left, I was a little disappointed with Segolene Royal, socialist’s darling who didn’t seem to have real plans and rather said people would decide.  I believe in the mess France is in, they need strong leadership.

Unfortunately, they also took in our flashy political displays with big staged scene appearances, flashy neons and dazzling lights.  Whatever gets people inspired. I’m more interested in plans.

I won’t talk much about our state here.  I feel Republicans and Democrats have blurred the lines too much.  I would be hard press to chose a new comer against an old shark.  I would rather have serious plans and know in advance who the administration will be.

People in both countries are profoundly ideologists which is sad when we need individual ethics, prooven track record and intelligent team work, then and only after then can we indulge in ideology politics.  There just isn’t much difference anymore.

A number that has many analysts watching in order to anticipate the market are foreclosures.  The Center for Responsible Lending released a new report on foreclosures in the subprime market and their real cost to homeowners.  The prognostic was that foreclosure rates will increase in many markets as housing appreciation slows or reverses.  An estimated 2.2 million borrowers could stand to lose their homes.  That is a very steep number.

One out of five subprime mortgages originated during the past two years will end in foreclosure.  That’s roughly 20%.    This exceeds the worst foreclosure experience in the modern mortgage market, which occurred during the “Oil Patch” disaster of the 1980s.

Chilly news here at Calculated Risk.

Ever eaten at Gypsy’s?  It’s one of Long Beach’s best little kept secret.

If you like Mediterranean type food with a hint of Persian touch, you’ll like this place.  The owners are wonderful and the staff is equally as nice.

There is no alcohol, so I always get my Doog.  A yogurty milky drink spiced with thyme and herbs.  Yum, yum.  My favorite plate is a Gypsy’s plate.  A combination of soaked walnuts, mint, tasty olives and real Feta cheese that you wrap in pita bread.  hey also have plenty of skewer to chose from for you meat lovers.  Their organic lamb and chicken is quite tasty I am told.

They are located right before the Belmont Brewery Club on the Veteran’s Pier.  Give them a try.