However, that made home prices artificially high. Adding to the whole mess was the rapid decline of the inner cities. When Reagan killed federal revenue-sharing with local governments, poverty rose again and the tax base declined. Federal block grants used to fund all kinds of effective anti-poverty programs.

That’s when virtually everyone who could afford it packed up and moved to the burbs - they didn’t want their kids going to city schools. But they had to extend themselves to do it, and that’s when women really began flooding into the full-time workplace - to pay the typical suburban mortgage, you needed two paychecks. Thus, we gained the illusion of economic good times, but the dollar actually declined in actual purchasing power until the Clinton era.

I’m sure there are other factors, but those are the big ones.

So while I can’t point to a specific smoking gun and say, “Oo, the Republicans did it,” I can say from the Reagan era on, public policy certainly favored home inflation.

The interest only 110% (Yes 110%) Interest only ARMs. The lenders, who couldn’t find people with down payments for houses, sucked people into getting into situations that will kill their credit for years to come. Did I mention that the bankruptcy laws were changed to screw the poor?

As Curly would say “Don’t get me started!!”

On the otherhand, it’s a renter’s market. Dawn and I have a sweet little beachfront pad with mom, pop and a juvenile Osprey nesting sixty yards off the deck for about twenty percent, apparently, of what ‘yawl out there are paying.

Did I mention there’s no jobs?

Here’s a set of picture diaries from YearlyKos. Not exactly newsworthy, except in the, ‘Bill O’Reilly is a punk if he thinks these people are part of a hate movement,’ sort of way: hekebolos, SundayHighway, Eddie C and dmsilev. Zimbabwe……