Greenspan Predicts Housing Prices

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Greenspan predicts there’s likely to be a further sharp fall in U.S. house prices, which should dampen consumption: “As a consequence, that will affect consumer spending, because … a substantial part of consumer spending does not come directly out of income, but out of assets, finance by debt.” Meanwhile, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Greenspan put the odds at less than half that the U.S. is headed for a recession. “We’re heading towards a slowdown. Whether that actually leads to a recession is dependent on things we can’t forecast at this moment. My own guess is the odds are less than 50-50 that we’re heading to a recession,” Greenspan told host Tim Russert. Read the transcript –Joellen Perry