Chart of the Day: What's Opera Doc?

The Lennar puts I recommended to SOA readers are looking much better yesterday on the heels of yesterday's news that February housing starts were down 4%. Building permit requests were also off 1.5%. We're still at near record levels for housing activities, which should, in my view, comfort housing bears. How long can something remain "at record levels" before returning to non-record levels? That said, the performance in the housing market reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Opera Doc." You remember it, it's the one where Bugs plays Brunhilde and Elmer Fudd plays Siegfried in an animated reproduction of Wagner's Der Rings Des Nibelungen. Bugs makes the opera singers face turn blue when he makes him hold a high note...a high C I think...for an impossibly long time. I remember watching it when I was younger and getting short of breath just watching. To me, the housing market looks all blue in the face as well.