Posted by Leonard Steinberg on June 20th, 2012

We can now all agree on one thing about the economy: housing has been the # 1 driving force behind the meltdown. Too many people bought over-priced houses that they could not afford. There was a massive over-supply. And there were too many speculators driving pricing up artificially. The government encouraged bad behavior. The banks behaved badly, partly encouraged to do so by the government and were not watched closely enough. And many consumers behaved badly using their homes as ATMS….encouraged by the banks. Blame can be shared by all……it worked in South Africa in the TRUTH AND CONCILIATION process that ‘outed’ all the crimes by all the players.

Flash forward to June 2012: Several markets are rebounding while others are stagnating. The high end of the market is performing best. Along come the politicians…….Marco Rubio says that the American Dream is not home ownership…..really? So the man who claims he can fix the economy thinks that RESPONSIBLE home ownership should not be part of the AMERICAN DREAM when our economy is so largely dependent on the housing market? This is the same conservative guy who is saying that government should be smaller, yet he is living proof of the American Dream……by working for the government, getting paid with tax dollars. HUH? I guess the meaning of the word conservative has changed…..