Mish's Model for Home Prices, Map of Unemployment Trends Between States, Americans Giving More to Charity, and Rand Paul Rockin' the D.C. Metro?

Mish has this awesome post today on various graphs and predictions for the future of home prices.  Most important though was his own model for predicting home prices way back in, get this, 2005!:

And here everyone though that summer 2006 was the peak.  It may very well have been, but still, Mish once again proves why I read his site everyday.  So where does he think we are now?

I think housing in some areas is very close to a bottom. Others areas have more to drop.

Based on inventory, shadow inventory, and boomer demographics, home prices are not going up significantly for a long time yet, perhaps a decade, even if they have already bottomed.

There is certainly no reason to rush. Finally, anyone with any uncertainties regarding their employment has no business even thinking about buying now.

I couldn't agree more, especially when looking at these charts:

Since I am on the topic of charts, check this one out via Zerohedge of the unemployment trends from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics over the past month:

Here is the BLS summary:

In May, nonfarm payroll employment increased in 22 states, decreased in 27 states and the District of Columbia, and was unchanged in 1 state. The largest over-the-month increase in employment occurred in Florida (+28,000), followed by Ohio (+12,000), Arizona and Louisiana (+10,100 each), and Texas (+8,800). Wyoming experienced the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment (+0.8 percent), followed by Louisiana (+0.5 percent) and Arizona and Florida (+0.4 percent each). The largest over-the-month decrease in employment occurred in California (-29,200), followed by New York (-24,700), Pennsylvania (-14,200), Michigan (-13,400), and Maryland (-13,300). Alaska experienced the largest over-the-month percentage decline in employment (-1.5 percent), followed by Vermont (-1.2 percent), Delaware  (-0.9 percent), and West Virginia (-0.7 percent). Over the year, nonfarm employment increased in 39 states and decreased in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The largest over-the-year percentage increase occurred in North Dakota (+4.3 percent), followed by Texas (+2.0 percent), Nebraska (+1.9 percent), and Wyoming (+1.7 percent). The largest over-the-year percent decrease in employment occurred in Maryland (-0.8 percent), followed by New Mexico (-0.7 percent) and Georgia and Nevada (-0.6 percent each).

Okay, so every time I am arguing with those of the opposite political persuasion (usually on the HuffingtonPost), I normally try to advocate for private charity and civil society organizations taking over for caring for the poor as a replacement for welfare programs.  And of course the reaction I get is "people are too greedy to give enough to charity to take care of the unfortunate."  Well, despite the fact that the economy is still in the toilet (and isn't getting better), check out this report on American giving charity via Reuters:

(Reuters) - U.S. donations to charity rose to $291 billion last year, a study found on Monday, but it was still more than 6 percent below a 2007 record as the nation struggles to recover from its worst recession in decades.
Americans gave nearly 4 percent more in 2010 compared to 2009, the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University said, perking up after the recession sparked the biggest giving slump in four decades.

Despite 9% unemployment, we still gave almost $300 billion in charity, crazy.  If you wanna see something else crazy, check out Rand Paul being a man of the people and hitting the rails in D.C.:

And be sure to check out Ron Paul squaring off with Matt Lauer this morning: