Flippers. Record home prices. Stock markets at record highs. Record low-interest rates. Just add some sad tales about young couples making $250,000 per year in Silicon Valley who still can't afford a million-dollar bungalow and you've got 2007 all over again.

Initial unemployment claims rose to 500,000 today, the highest level since November. Analysts had predicted a drop. They were wrong. This figure would be below 400,000 in a healthy, recovering economy, which we do not have. [Image: AP]

More than half of self-identified Republicans don't blame banks for the financial crisis. Pollsters didn't ask who they do blame, but I'm guessing it's "blacks, poors, Nobama, Barney Fag and ACORN."

Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg blamed the SEC for the nation's financial crisis yesterday, shortly after the Boston native was done pretending to care about the Jets.