Although Foolishness demands that we not overreact to short-term news, it often pays you to pay attention to the headlines, if only to see what's not so wise about the wisdom of crowds. Here are three of the reasons to freak out that I'm watching today:

1. Foreclosures are tracking for another record year
According to RealtyTrac, this time, it really is different. In the first half of 2010, 1.65 million properties received foreclosure notices. How bad is that? Pundits and policy makers have been promising us that the worst is over, yet this is worse -- 8% worse, top be exact -- than the first half of 2009. That suggests to RealtyTrac Senior Vice president Rick Sharga (as told to NPR) that the banks won't have worked through the backlog of foreclosed homes until 2013. With all those bank-repossessed homes competing with new (and yet-unbuilt) homes, I doubt we've seen the worst for homebuilders like PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM) and Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL). Seems like there's a good reason these two are flirting with their 52-week lows.

2. Cupertino freezes over: Apple deigns to discuss its faulty iPhone 4 with the plebeians
Well, it won't really discuss the issues with the plebs; in fact, it's been censoring the plebs who do discuss it on the company's own online message boards. But Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) will reportedly spin the iPhone 4 at a news conference tomorrow for some carefully selected journalists. I doubt the story will change much, and Apple will repeat its standard lines, versions of: "You're holding it wrong," "There is no issue," and "Spend 30 bucks on one of those gaudy phone condoms and leave us the heck alone." 

Whatever happens, it's unlikely to diminish the profits from the iPhone, now or future. The diverse offering based on Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android simply can't yet entice an audience that just wants to be cool by being the same as everyone else, even if that means buying a faulty product. If Apple shares dive for any reason on this news, or on any Apple response to the infamous "death grip," bank on the iCult and buy.

3. The "austerity" crowd remains impervious to fact
"Austerity" is the new buzzword for governments around the world seeking to enhance their street cred, including the United States. It's a theme picked up by pundits who don't know the difference between the U.S. and Greece, and who are pounding the table on the dangers of the deficit and inflation. That's like worrying that your garage might burn down next year and wreck your car, at the exact moment that you're steering off the side of a mountain road. 

It will be interesting to see how this mass-delusional, self-economic-flagellation plays out this month, given that this morning we have yet more evidence that deflation is the persistent problem. Weak economies and overcapacity pushed producer prices down 0.5% in June, the third straight month prices have fallen, and it's happening at an increasing pace. 

As I discussed yesterday, big-ticket items like cars are already trending worse for consumer spending than gadgets, and with price wars ongoing, and increasingly likely, I'd much rather be in a stock like Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), which reported booming demand and sells gear for smaller-cost items, than Ford (NYSE: F), which will suffer more of the consumer big-ticket shock.