The Washington Post repeated the story that consumers have been reluctant to spend due to the bad economy. In fact, the savings rate has hovered around 5.0 percent through the last 2 years. This is well below the pre-stock bubble average, which was more than 8.0 percent. This implies that consumers have continued to spend at an unusually rapid clip, albeit not as fast as when their spending was driven by $8 trillion of housing bubble wealth.

The article also implied that house prices are no longer falling. This is not true, the September Case-Shiller 20 City index showed that prices were falling at an 8.5 percent annual rate. This would eliminate more than $1 trillion in housing equity over the course of a year.