Washington Post still doesn’t get it

Today, 25 August 2010, the Washington Post reported:

“The Commerce Department says new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,000, the slowest on record dating to 1963.
”The numbers are the latest sign that the economic recovery is fading.”

When will they put the demographic data together with the housing data and realize that the housing data is no longer a reliable source for evaluating the economy?

Our population is going into negative growth.  It doesn’t matter how it continues to grow, the growth rate is lower than the available housing stock.  Older houses are inefficient – therefore they have been replaced with newer, energy efficient, homes at a rate comparable to the population changes attributable to the maturing of the depleting portion of the Baby-Boom generation (those born before 1966 who became first time home owners before 1996).

So long as we have insufficient immigration -- to replenish the declining native population – there will be a surplus of older homes.  That surplus creates a market effect which reduces the demand for new homes (the more efficient older homes, and those situated in warmer climates, will continue to sell at a diminishing pace).  Older homes which are inefficient will be purchased for their LOTS – the building torn down and either turned into lawns for an adjacent property, or replaced with a new end efficient home.

We can expect a slowdown in construction of apartment houses, office buildings, and even shopping malls.  However, there will be significant growth in  – if the Republicans cease their opposition to – Green Energy providers … Wind Farms, Solar, Tidal, geothermal and other energy providing technologies yet to be revealed, developed, or discovered.  The totality of our society is in for a dramatic change which is rendering conventional economic indicators virtually worthless.

Of course, we might also be heading for some cataclysmic variation on a modernistic stoneage – again, this depends on the ability of an element within our society to promote sustained global conflict.  On the global level, the choice is between quick violent, totally destructive, responses – or, the prolonged, “feet on the ground” approach which gives an advantage to insurgents and those fighting on their own turf … it’s a matter of supply lines, energy requirements, and the resources to maintain them.  No single nation has the domestic resources to fight (in the “conventional” manner) conflicts half-way around the world.  The only ones whop can fight such wars are those who engage in insurgent or anarchist tactics.

But, once again, We cannot rationally expect the Washington Post to grasp that reality either.