steve, but inflation is a devilish thing in people s lives. you know, bill, right now i m sitting in jacksonville, florida. try to buy a house in florida right now, in orlando, tampa, palm beach or fort lauderdale. forget about it. there isn t anything to buy. you ve seen the huge escalation in prices and for people who own homes that s good news. more equity in their houses. but for people trying to buy houses, bill, it is a really tough market where you ve seen a doubling and truppling in housing values here. here is the problem. i do believe there is a potential bubble here because as you were just saying, in just the last year or so, these interest rates on mortgages have gone from 3 1/2% to 5 1/2% and going in the wrong direction. is there a housing bubble? i m worried, no question about it. don t forget what happened last time we had a housing bubble in
i don t see it. these are worried democrats in georgia, arizona, nevada and other places in the country, new hampshire, that s right. so where are the pickups? i think they re hoping for wisconsin. i think ron johnson has shown he is a pretty tough campaigner. given the polling for biden, this is not consistent with democratic pickups. that has to change. and the policies have to change if he wants inflation to change. bill: in your paper today they write about he is favored 31-56% that s significant. james. that s a problem for maggie hassan as we discussed. one of these democrats who hasn t separated herself from joe biden on policy. voted with him essentially all the time with perhaps a few rare exceptions but she has been with him on all the big votes. she is trying to do a straddle.
rates of 15, 16, 17%. i don t want to see that. the fed has to take action to bring the inflation down. congress and white house have to take some action in cutting government spending so we don t have this rampant runaway inflation. that is going to crash land the economy and i want the fed to take some action now. bill: austan, go. look, what you have seen so far over the last year is inflation is higher than the interest rate. so anybody who took out a mortgage or if you take a mortgage at 5% and inflation is at 7%, the actual real interest rate you are paying is negative 2%. they are paying you to take the mortgage. so we have to get back to an equilibrium. i want everyone who is out looking at houses, if you are looking to buy, your incentives on house prices are the opposite of the people who are looking to sell or borrow money. bill: the bigger issue.