Quickie from vacation in Florida:

1. Katrina damage here is much worse than being reported. While it is random, the flooding has wrecked homes and small businesses; the highways are in bad shape too. The locals are estimating a billion plus.

2. I've commented many times on this blog about the foreign buying of real estate in this country forcing prices up in the West and the Northwest. I posted in Driveby in Paradise the fact that Europeans owned a great deal of Pebble Beach and more than a little of Carmel-by-the-Sea. This ownership of desireable property drives median prices beyond the $2 million mark, ruins the schools because the out of towners don't give a shit about the local schools so they deteriorate, and they don't care about improvements like roads and sewers. Will this bubble burst? No, not until the EU economies tank; the Japanese had bought up Pebble Beach in the 80's and had to dump in the early 90s because they didn't have the money.