Rising vacancies in office and retail is largely due to a lack of consumer spending, lay-offs and business downsizing.

I believe that justice Roberts, for instance, never once in his entire carrier sided with a consumer...

They have an investigative cover story about how we, the consumers are cheated by the major corporations including cell phones companies, financial institutions, hotels, airlines, cable and internet companies, etc. using hidden fees and misc. surcharges.

Had they been smart they could have created an economy within properly compensated workers consuming goods and services of the country while building these ridiculous developments.

There used to be a lot more of these types of lenders, but since the downturn and with tighter regulations, these are fewer of them around.

Here on the retail (consumer) side, things are DOWN.

Instead of getting lent out to consumers and investors, it's used shore up the bank's balance sheet.

If nobody ever asked for payoff statements, they would need fewer employees.

As you know, it use to be that REO required an appraisal and the BPO was born after lenders were crying about the expense of throwing more good money in a bad loan and ultimately sticking the consumer with a deficiency...probably spun as a consumer benfit.

Well, there is the other end of experience--the consumer.