Home loan demand drops as rates near 5-month high

It is really amazing that everything the Fed does, timing wise, seems to be because how the stock market is acting, and is actually having no effect on the real world. I know it isn't that simple, but it really seems to be. Check out this headline: Home loan demand drops as rates near 5-month high.

The cutting of interest rates was supposed to... lowere interest rates, right? Instead, real mortgage rates are going UP!

Some other recent headlines: Unemployment rate rises in 27 states in January, Consumer bankruptcies leap in February, Subprime crisis and poverty hand-in-hand: study. And yet many economists are still saying that technically there will not be a "real recession". At this point, who cares? The pain seems real enough. The country is convulsing in a leaderless vacuum.