So, back in the early Aughties, banks were handing mortgages out to anybody who could hold a pen and fog a mirror. The "NINJA" (No Income, No Job or Assets) loan became a thing. Lenders were chasing winos down alleyways and forcing them into $350k McMansions telling them they could "flip" the house for half a mil next week. I actually overheard a couple of night stock clerks at a Kroger back in Knoxville talking about the houses they were flipping, back in early '07.
It got so out of whack that it eventually replaced the Dutch tulip mania as an example of stuff that got out of whack in econ textbooks.
Predictably, the economy collapsed. Barack Obama got elected at least partly as a backlash to the collapsed housing bubble that took down Wall Street.
Which makes this headline delicious, at least if you find irony tasty:
