Brandon Foor, a professor friend whose article graces our real estate page, has kindly offered to fill in for me for a few days while I’m helping my daughter recuperate.

Today, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke before Congress endorsing a quickly implemented stimulus package. Bernanke stated this could provide some major assistance against an economic downturn.

I thought we were already in a recession? If you listen to Fox Business or CNBC, a majority of analysts have already stated we’re in a recession.

“Housing itself,” as Bernanke stated, “will probably subtract more than one percentage point from GDP growth in the fourth quarter and may continue to be a drag on growth for a good part of this year as well.”

Earlier, Merrill Lynch reported their 4th quarter earnings reflecting an abysmal subprime write-off loss of over $11.5 billion. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch was asked about subprime and write-down. His response:

“...there is not much downside to our write-downs based on values.”

What Thain is trying to explain is the values of what they own have been lowed to the point it’s viewed as an interest-bearing investment. Their plan is not to write down any more in subprime, and liquidity is strong at Merrill.

Remember, when downside reaches it’s height, many people think recession is near. Here’s what leaders of financial institutions are saying to you: the bottom of subprime is in through our write-downs. The increasing liquidity of foreign investments is a very positive sign as well. So they are getting liquidity and are investing it in areas beaten to a pulp ... like real estate in battered markets.

What these comments say to me is: Have you bought your Las Vegas investment house yet?

I closed on my new Summerlin home two weeks ago.

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