July 23, 2010
The housing bubble — you know that $8 trillion run up in house prices. When it burst it led to a financial crisis that almost brought down the financial system. It also pushed the economy into the worst downturn in 70 years, since its collapse caused construction to plummet and consumption (which had been fueled by bubble created home equity) to plunge.
You would think that people who report on the housing market would have noticed the bubble — sort of like environmental reporters taking note of global warming — but that doesn’t seem to be the case at NPR. It ran two separate stories this morning on the housing market, neither of which made any reference to the housing bubble.
The second included an extended presentation of the views of Nicolas Retsinas, the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. Mr. Retsinas gained notoriety for insisting that there was no bubble during the peak years of the run-up in house prices and insisting that it was still a good time for moderate income families to buy homes.
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