News out of Britain is catastrophic, Spain also appears to be in the midst of something very very bad. As for the US...

French prices are down, but I am not in contact with the more recent information coming out of there. Germany, whose market got hit after reunification, didn't go up very much after that, so there, at least, the situation is better.

Europe, unfortunately these days, is not detached fro the US economy. The malaise has spead here through the banking sector, which got burned, as you know, after buying US subprime paper. The banks were therefore weakened, and getting loans for purchases is more problematic now and also more expensive.