November 30, 2011
A NYT article on President Obama’s latest program to help underwater homeowners included the assertion:
“an increasing number of economists worry that depressed housing prices and underwater borrowers are holding back a broader recovery.”
Actually, the United States does not have depressed housing prices. According to the Case Schiller national house price index, inflation adjusted house prices are still more than 9 percent above their 1996 level. The problem was that the country had a housing bubble that is now mostly deflated. The problem in the economy is not a depressed housing market.
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