Foreclosure filings in the US rose 48% on the previous year in May, providing further evidence of a deepening housing market slump.

“While the U.S. housing market is still searching for its bottom, the situation is much livelier just south of the border.” says Sara Nunnally in Taipan Daily. “Mexico’s housing sector is seeing a strong resurgence.”

Everywhere I look, I see the word “bubble” – quickly followed by the word “burst” or “deflate”. So what exactly is a “bubble”? Well, it used to be the sort of thing that one had in a hot tub bath when there was a lot of soap.

With the housing market’s woes the latest obsession in the US, many Americans are desperately looking for housing market predictions for 2008. And the latest news is far from encouraging. This from CNNMoney:

Global Insight, the world’s leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, today released the first quarter 2008 update of the U.S. housing valuation analysis, House Prices in America, showing that single-family home prices fell for the third straight period

We’ve got a lot to remember and a lot to reckon with on this Memorial Day…the richest man in the world travels to Europe to seek out better investments…The Oracle of Omaha could write for The Daily Reckoning…putting the squeeze on the American family… Checking in on Cuba…and more!

With the oil price at near-record highs and Shell and BP declaring record profits last week, there are various truckloads of drivel about the oil majors being ruthless profiteers doing the rounds at the moment. But who’s really raking in the money?

More bad news for the US economy: sales of existing US homes fell 2% in March.

The recently released data from the National Association of Realtors are more evidence of the continuing slump the US property market.

The euro hit new highs today on the news, surging to $1.60.

“In the United States and in the United Kingdom, it is clear that the housing boom has been a bubble,” says Lord William Rees-Mogg in Whiskey and Gunpowder.

America’s triple-A credit rating may be in danger, says Standard and Poor’s. If the country has to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through a prolonged recession, it could cost the nation’s treasury as much as 10% of GDP.

What’s the difference between a boom and a bubble? Can we expect every booming market to someday burst and envelope anyone short-sighted enough to hang around?

The Bank of England cut the base interest rate by 0.25% to 5% yesterday. So naturally, mortgage interest rates went up. Nationwide, Alliance & Leicester and Britannia all raised the rates on their fixed-rate deals, by as much as 30 basis points (0.3%) in the case of A&L’s two-year fix.