Enjoy!

"We have a housing market going into cardiac arrest. This bill is like CPR to stabilize the situation," said David Abromowitz, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington.

Don't buy a house today if you aren't going to stay there at least 7 years. That's right, a mortgage lender is telling you that if you don't have at least a 7 year time frame in mind, you shouldn't buy a house right now. Why? It's all about the math. If the market drops another 5% over the next year and then stays the same for two years, it's going to take 7 years for you to recoup the 5% loss and then build up enough to pay the 6% Realtor's fees when you sell and make a little profit too.

This paper estimates the evolution of equilibrium real home prices in the United States and finds that despite recent declines, single-family homes remained 8 to 20 percent overvalued as of the first quarter of 2008. In the short run, the gap between actual and equilibrium prices does not exert powerful influence over price dynamics. Instead, that dynamics is driven by the inventory-to-sales ratio and by foreclosure starts in a highly inertial relationship. Taken together, this implies that price declines are likely to continue, including past the point where overvaluation is eliminated. The paper also finds that from the early 1990s onwards changes in regional home prices have been more synchronized than before, and that the recent movements in the average price index have reflected a nationwide housing boom, followed by a nationwide housing bust.

Across the country, women in their prime earning years, struggling with an unfriendly economy, are retreating from the work force, either permanently or for long stretches.

When economists first started noticing this trend two or three years ago, many suggested that the pullback from paid employment was a matter of the women themselves deciding to stay home — to raise children or because their husbands were doing well or because, more than men, they felt committed to running their households.

But now, a different explanation is turning up in government data, in the research of a few economists and in a Congressional study, to be released Tuesday, that follows the women’s story through the end of 2007.

Forty percent of gamers are women according to a new survey released today by the video game industry's trade group, the Entertainment Software Association.

As you may have heard, some 50 years after Betty Friedan sprang us from domestic jail, we women … seem to have made a mess of it. What do we want? Not to be men (wrong again, Freud!), at least not businessmen—although slacker men, sans futon and bong, might appeal. In these post-Lisa-Belkin-New-York-Times-Magazine-“Opt-Out” years, we’ve now learned the worst: even female Harvard graduates are fleeing high-powered careers for a kinder, gentler Martha Stewart Living. Not only does the Problem Have a Name, it has its own line of Fiestaware!

And what are our fallen M.B.A. sisters of Crimson doing? Kvells one Harvard-grad-turned-stay-at-home-mom, on the subject of her days:

I dance and sing and play the guitar and listen to NPR. I write letters to my family, my congressional representatives, and to newspaper editors. My kids and I play tag and catch, we paint, we explore, we climb trees and plant gardens together. We bike instead of using the car. We read, we talk, we laugh. Life is good. I never dust.

Is the mass media to blame (again!) for pushing women out of the workplace? Not so much. On our zeitgeist-setting TV shows, it’s only the housewives who are desperate. Work is fun!

"In seeking a soul mate, it's helpful not to forget your own soul."

"Could it be that badness requires more suppression of individual preferences than goodness ever did?"

A Pittsburgh-based group of girls launched a "Girlcott" of Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts that were sexually suggestive and otherwise demeaning ("Do I make you look fat?"). When the company invited the group to its Ohio headquarters, one of the girls charged company reps with "neglecting their social responsibility." The Girlcott attracted nationwide attention and the participation of thousands of girls. It also achieved changes (at least temporarily) at Abercrombie: A&F pulled the shirts, and its inventory soon included a tee touting "cute and classy."

"Good taste" thus becomes an acquired trait.

When we see about us all our lives mediocre or poor taste rather than beauty in architecture, household furnishings, and carpets, it is small wonder that we often choose wrongly when it comes to our clothes.

...

It is the duty of every woman to attire herself as charmingly as possible, for the pleasure of her friends and all who come in contact with her as well as to aid her advancement in any calling. It is hard not to be self-conscious when unsuitably dressed.

Armed with arquebuses, the French rapidly gunned down the Mohawks, and this display of firepower persuaded the remaining tribesmen to provide a regular supply of North American beavers for European hats. It also marked the start of the destruction of North American native culture.

The French, though, were not really looking for beavers.

Many women have the natural gift of knowing what to wear and how to wear it. When planning a new costume or dress, they can not only visualize it as a whole, but grasp instantly the style and colour of the hat to go with it. To other women the vision is not so clear, and often when they want a hat they buy or make one that proves quite unsuitable. As a means of avoiding such disappointments, let us consider the requirements of what may be termed the "ideal hat", suited to every face, figure and occasion.

There should be nothing awe-inspiring or mysterious about the word "style." Every woman can develop her sense of style -- by observation and comparison. Not only is it educational but it will be fun as well. You will find inspiration in movies, museums, fashion magazines and society pages of newspapers. In your weekly visit to the movies, notice how carefully hats and accessories are chosen for their dramatic effect -- and how each star's costume is an ensemble. This is what you will be able to achieve for yourself -- once you have made your first hat.