Amazing as it might seem the State Legislature of Louisiana has seen fit to recreate Yossarian's nightmarish experience in Catch-22 by killing legislation that might have helped house some folks in New Orleans in a more expeditious fashion. You might have read or heard that KB Homes (NYSE: KBH) has been trying to develop various projects in and around New Orleans since soon after Hurricane Katrina departed.

Clearly KB had more than altruistic goals in mind but it was quick to act, seeing the Katrina tragedy as an opportunity to help a community crushed by the lack there of.

KB Homes CEO Jeff Mezger said in a recent article in Fortune Magazine: "It's taking longer for the city to rebound than we expected," he says. One unusual problem: a severe shortage of plumbers. KB learned after it arrived that state law requires plumbers to complete more than four years of training before obtaining a license, and that Louisiana follows different plumbing codes than most other states. That means KB effectively can't bring plumbers from Houston, where it has an extensive contractor network."

If you know anything about Louisiana's political history, it might not surprise you at all to learn that after KB Homes sponsored a bill in the state legislature to loosen these arcane requirements, the state's Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association promptly squashed it dead. Never mind that thousands of locals needed housing, and the workers pouring in to help rebuild the city needed housing. Nope. It was business as usual.

If you are a regular reader of my blogs (like Ethan, who I quote below), you know I try to be accountable for my positions and try to share real experiences that I am going through in my investment world as well as I comment on things affecting the world of stocks and business in general. This week I posted: Frantic market: Retail up, retail down...who cares?, as the market darted up and down and back up. I think it is important to offer a sober perspective among all the noise. Most of what you hear is noise.

• Ethan wrote me: "Thank you for the rational non-exuberance blog on market forces. I do have to ask about the particular "crushed" housing market on home building companies as such for being the "Sell" and "Avoid" industry currently. While there is a rumor today about Buffett's bid for Hovanian Enterprise (HOV), do you personally see any value and fundamental still within the industry, to name a few stocks that do give dividends (DHI, PHM, LEN, CTX, KBH, MDC, BZH...)? My gut is Yes but it would contradict the market force and the continuing virus-spiraling down sub-prime mortgage situation that affects many other industries as well.

The short answer is yes. To paraphrase Warren Buffett and other value investors, you simply must buy stocks when the fear in the market (or a sector) reaches a crescendo.