One HousingCrisis.com correspondent has an in-law who's shared an issue you might find familiar.

"We've got a guy in the office who's got about $250 invested in stocks, who all day, every half hour, says, 'The market's down another 300, the market's up a thousand, the market's down 450,'" the in-law says. "It's infuriating! You just want to tape up his mouth, so you can put your head down and do your job without the distraction. I can't control this stuff, so I just want to forget about it for a while and work." This in-law's livelihood is about as far afield of the machinations of Wall Street financial services companies as you can get, but the noise level from the Asia Pacific to the European financial markets, to the U.S. futures gets deafening just about the time people on East Coast time are having their first cup of coffee.

With Halloween ahead this week, there's macro, micro, and scarecrow in the days and nights to come. On tap for release: new home sales, Case-Shiller home prices, homeownership rates and vacancies, FOMC, GDP, unemployment numbers will feed into the system, confirming that the global economy is not about to wake up on Nov. 1 from 40% paper losses from year-ago peaks, as if it were a bad dream. The Fed can lower rates another notch to 1% before money's free; the U.S. economy can show negative GDP and not surprise a whole hell of a lot of people, and unemployment can continue to reflect that companies' scorecards these days measure how well they can shrink vs. what they can do to produce better. Shiller's price readings may be gravity bound toward his own forecast 35% or 36% ultimate decline, and Q3 vacancies of for-sale and for-rent housing stock might blip over their current 1 in 50 level.

None of these metrics' resets will surprise investor pros betting on their direction. Those pros have already acted, with prompts from what U.S. consumers were doing more than a year ago, and what was happening in housing starting almost three years ago. Those pros are not part of the furor we're seeing in the broader stock markets and futures. Still they're chastened and mystified, and wondering, like the rest of us, what can be next. But they do have cash, and once they're happy that "the real economy" expectations and the big discounts on stock prices fall into harmony, they'll come back in. Until then, about all that we can say for sure will be next is November.

On a micro basis for housing, we'll hear from Centex, MDC, Meritage, M/I, and Standard Pacific among home builders and Masco, Owens Corning, and USG among public building materials companies as to their performance and expectations. Shrinking fast, preserving cash, and identifying a fresh capital base for even leaner times ahead will be the common thread in corporate earnings pronouncement. Strength in lower numbers is the virtue of the moment.

What's happening in financials—consolidation—can be expected among the pantheon of names we know as the big builder community within the next 12 months. If Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and Citigroup and every financial institution, save perhaps JPMorgan, needs to be talking with one another about possibly merging, HousingCrisis.com believes similar forces will drive home builders to step up and pare down.

A look at where cash flow from new-home closings will come in over the next 12 to 24 months will show there's not enough of it expected to support overheads and operations and service debt for the 20 or so public home builders left in the universe. The need to get access to a greater capital base, and capitulation on land assets will fuel more and more earnest M&A talk among home builders as 2009 wears on.

Picking two or three out of five of the strongest is not an easy drill, but it'll likely characterize the magnitude of the correction underway. 

That's at least part of what's on the docket for HousingCrisis.com for coverage in the week ahead.

But we'd be remiss if we didn't revisit a couple of  moments from last week in light of their significance, present and future.

One is this: If you haven't seen former Fed chief Alan Greenspan's remarks in Senate Committee from last week, have a look. This particular perspective, offered by Calculated Risk, is not to be missed.

Secondly, HousingCrisis.com has been meaning to ask someone who attended last week's National Association of Home Builders forecast meeting in Washington, D.C.: Chief economist David Seiders' forecast? Give us a break. Talking about how home prices have come down far enough now to begin driving sales strikes me as disingenuous, if not reckless.

The conclusion of economic forecasts that responsibly extract insight from the data would be simply: Get ready for another brutal year in 2009, and a barely better year later.

Two home builder CEOs' assertions last week reflect a more realistic appraisal and action plan to slog it out in 2009.

One is Ryland Homes CEO Chad Dreier's wrap up on Q3 earnings last week:

I look forward to the day when the majority of our operational highlights no longer consist of our effectiveness in shrinking the company.

The other is Pulte Homes CEO Richard Dugas' assertion that nothing Congress has done to date, including the $7,500 tax credit program signed into law in July that the NAHB leadership told builders would be an effective catalyst, has done a lick to help home buyers get closer to their dream. A major league new-home buyer tax credit is now going to make its way back onto Congressional agendas. Maybe this one will brighten the horizon just a little bit.