Just an observation.
The DOW is up.
Housing is down.
For some time, the explanation for the strong market performance was consumer spending. Now there appears to be a consumer "circling of the wagons," but the DOW keeps going up. The explanation I've heard is that U.S. businesses are doing very well... overseas. The dollar is down and U.S. business are making a lot of money overseas... and that translates [exchanges?] into lots of cheap dollars.
So, let me see how this works. American consumers buy goods from U.S. companies who outsource production overseas and lay off American workers who then cannot afford to keep buying things like homes but the workers overseas make money and buy goods from American companies that make loads of money in terms of dollars because the dollars is getting to be worth less and less because American companies import goods and services for sale in the U.S. to consumers who need to buy inexpensive products because they are strapped financially because their jobs have been sent overseas.