Greece Lightning

Back in March, the DotLoop Blog discussed connectedness, especially as it relates to real estate. In March 9th's post, I wrote about how "A defaulted mortgage in Iowa can cause a farmer in Taiwan to lose his job."

It turns out I was off by a few thousand miles.

On the front page, above the fold of today's Wall Street Journal is a lead story about how American mortgage rates are declining thanks to the European debt crisis. The fears of rates creeping back up to around 6% have been (surprisingly) abated due to the influx of cash into U.S. bonds from skittish global investors, like manna from heaven.

While this bodes well for us in the short-run, I'm interested to see what this will mean in the long-run. After all, one country's crisis may be another country's gain right now, but with everything so inter-linked, just like the recent volcanic ash, the winds of a faltering Europe may eventually blow our way. The manna may have rained down on us, but are we in store for a round of Greece lightning?

We'll see if what happens to Pierre in Paris, France will eventually affect Peter in Paris, Kentucky.