A Booming Real Estate Market

If you rely on news from Iraq strictly through the lenses of the AP, CNN or the Gray Lady, you'd think that the entire country is aflame and that -- in spite of the inferno -- all of the non-functional power-lines haven't quite melted yet. And while the streets run red with blood, 80% of Iraqi citizens hate Americans while the remainder simply despise them.

But back in the real world, if you happen to parse the typical dispatches from the MediaCrats, you occasionally find nuggets like this (hat tip: PoliPundit):

A five-bedroom river-view house sold three years ago for $45,000. Two years ago it sold again, this time for $80,000. It sold a third time in August. The latest price tag? $300,000. It's not in Charlotte or Kansas City or Philadelphia; it's in Baghdad. The market here is booming... ...Baghdad's economy is also surprisingly strong. Streets are jammed with traffic. Cell phones are everywhere. The bare shelves of retail stores from the Saddam Hussein era are now piled high with imported goods...

So while the MediaCrats continue to put the worst possible face on each story out of Iraq, real-estate prices are rising dramatically and the economy is booming. Hmmm.