Housing prices fall, Ben Bernanke's bad news

Good day for: Staying put, as prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged 18.5 percent in December from a year earlier, according to a Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index on Tuesday. "Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee. (Reuters in Yahoo Finance)

Bad day for: Optimism, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday that the economy is suffering through a "severe contraction" and would continue shrinking through the first six months of 2009. (AP in Forbes)

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