Merry Christmas and F%$#k You, You're Fired

Unemployment continues to be the Achilles heal for this market in my humble opinion. I think any rally in the coming weeks, if there is one, will be extinguished by the grim reality of our jobless situation. Housing values are still declining although refi's are up due to our "saved by zero" approach to saving the world. I have a friend who knows a mortgage guy that is jumping on this loan modification bandwagon and has started a business around the phenomenon. He's grabbing about a $700 fee from Mr. Tarp for helping folks "modify" their loan agreement with their bank. He told my buddy it's a great fee from the government and the window will be for about twelve months, the scary thing he said is that 90% of these folks will unfortunately roll over anyway, it's just prolonging the inevitable.