EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Mortgage demand falls in December to the lowest level since 1996. “Mortgage rates have haunted the housing market into 2023. With rates above 6%, buyers continue to find homeownership unaffordable.”

When government spending and regulation are so out of control that the only way to goose economic growth is with easy money, it’s no puzzle what happens when inflation makes the easy money policy impossible to sustain.

What we need are deep and sustained cuts in both regulation and spending, but that’s at least two years off, if ever.