Silly Economists

Yahoo news article today: "Sales of new homes across the United States rose an unexpected 3.3 percent in April from the prior month, to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 526,000 homes, a government report showed Tuesday. The spike in sales confounded most economists' forecasts of a sales decline last month."

Why are they "confounded"? The lower housing prices offer opportunties for more people to buy houses!! This is basic economics. The supply exceeded the demand, so prices dropped, thus encouraging more buying.

If anything should confound the economists, it is the American driving public continuing to buy gasoline and diesel after the prices have doubled in the last two years. High prices should have reduced the demand, but they have not.