So, do you think America has gotten the message that Lawrence Yun, like David Lereah before him, is an untrustworthy, discredited hack?

I think so. And how sad for Yun, that he lies for money.

Only question is - what took so damn long for the media to realize it had been had (again)? Had to wait until the meltdown was in full effect and we were knee deep in it?

Here's a REALLY harsh look at Yun and the NAR from housingpanic supporter Seth Jayson at Motley Fool:

Lace up the hip waders, Fools, because it's time once again for our monthly trip through the National Association of Realtors' home sales numbers.

You know, the PR in which trained economists -- in service to an organization that wants a 6% cut on every used home sale in the U.S. -- spin elaborate fantasies that fly in the face of logic, but always just happen to support that noble, 6% goal.

Here are the facts, according to the NAR press release. July home sales were down 9% from July 2006. Current NAR spinner-in-chief Lawrence Yun claims down is up -- or at least, not down -- calling this drop "Stable." Better yet, he provides a completely unsupported supposition, arguing, "Home sales probably would be rising in the absence of the mortgage liquidity issues of the past two months."

It's official - Lawrence Yun is a distorting, deceptive spinmeister, just like TCDL

It didn't take TCLY long to pick up for TCDL. You wonder if there's a training class for NAR "economists" - called "how to lie, deceive, distort and spin".

When's the book coming out Larry? Maybe "Housing Crash My Ass - Why Housing Prices Will Soar! - The Fundamentals Don't Matter" or something like that.

I could just imagine the scene of this realtor luncheon (brown bags - nice. Ramen noodles next time?). And there you have Larry Yun, tellin' 'em what they want to hear. Versus this little thing called 'the truth' that most of us would expect to hear from an 'economist'.

Folks, the NAR is a discredited joke of an institution, run by monkeys, and now represented by TCLY.

He's down on the mat, he's bloody, the fans are booing. But can the Tampa Bay area housing market rise from the arena as the Comeback Kid?

You can bet the house on it, said Lawrence Yun, senior economist at the National Association of Realtors.

Yun was appointed last month as the top economic spokesman for the Washington-based Realtors group. He succeeded economist David Lereah, discredited after maintaining rosy outlooks amid an increasingly troubled housing market and promoting his 2005 book, Are You Missing The Real Estate Boom - Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade.

In a slide show Thursday to the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, Yun delivered a message of short-term pain leading to long-term gain.

"Five years from now you will be very happy you're in this business and located in Tampa," Yun said over a brown-bag lunch to about 75 real estate agents.

In Yun's view, rising incomes and declining home prices ought to have stimulated sales this year were it not for housing bubble scares in the media.

In one worst-case scenario, an economist suggested the gap between incomes and home prices would depress housing values 40 percent.

Yun scoffed at the idea: The real measure of affordability, he said citing a formula, is mortgage obligation relative to income. He clicked a slide showing Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater hovering at the national average. Much of California isn't so lucky, nor is high-priced Miami and Naples.

"It's very, very manageable. Nothing alarming in this region," Yun said.