I'm beginning to think that John Stewart has the easiest job in the world -- making fun of the news.  All he has to do is selectively read portions of it out loud. 

Sarah & Lester, it would help if the intent of the analysis was not to be misleading.  Maybe I went to the wrong school, but I always thought that a decline was a negative trajectory.  Must be something to do with the new math.

Bill, there's so many things wrong with politics that we could never cover them all in a lifetime.  One of my favorites: You have two choices, a rotten apple and  a bruised up over-ripe apple, and you choose the over-ripe one.  Our politicians would conclude that you like over-ripe, bruised apples and call that a mandate for everything almost-rotten apples stand for.

John, you and I and about another three hundred million Americans are all scratching our heads.   

Gene, I think yhat the public has mistrust for just about every industry, and that's probably the result of broadened media availability.  Add politicians deliberately distorting data and economists doing the same, and you get public confusion and mistrust.

Today's drivel from the same source as yesterday includes a report that median home prices fell 2.2%.  One can only assume without further information that the drop was from December prices.  The public takeaway is that homes are cheaper now than a month ago. That would be correct if the data refers to the same mix of real estate.  I'll speculate that the second home market in areas where it's cheaper to build, and also guessing that second homes are usually smaller and cheaper than primary residences, is traditionally stronger in January than in December.  Could that have affected median prices? Yup.