Best business commentary

Let the market deal with housing

“Home prices are tumbling,” says Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post, and all we hear is: “Gloom. Doom. Calamity.” But falling home prices are “actually good news,” and “the sooner prices fall, the better” for the housing market. While many economists “who should know better” blame the price drop on an oversupply of houses, the real problem is that “many prospective customers can’t buy at today’s prices.” No one knows how much prices have to drop, as there’s “no national housing market,” but a 20 percent drop would still only put prices at 2004 levels. While this may seem “cruel,” remember that “by definition, the ’housing bubble’ meant that home prices got too high.”

Employment and your permanent e-record

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When you apply for a job, be aware that “hiring managers are increasingly using the Web as a supplement to your paper resume,” says Money Magazine’s Joe Light in CNNMoney.com. This “unauthorized biography” of you compiled through blog postings, Facebook entries, and other additions to your “permanent worldwide record” can have “a devastating career impact.” You don’t have much control over “your digital doppelganger,” but privacy expert Daniel Solove suggests that you Google yourself before an interview. If you can’t get offending sites to remove information about you, you can at least prepare an answer for any controversial chapters in your digital bio.