[identity profile] drdoug.livejournal.com 2008-10-12 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Interesting.

Not convinced by their trendlines on the graph on slide 15 - HOME PRICES GREW SUBSTANTIALLY ABOVE MEAN atop a graph (which I of US real home price index vs time.

They've drawn three periods: -1.2% annualised from 1900-1929, then 0.7% annualised 1930-1997, then 8% since. To the eye of a scientist-cum-social-scientist-(excluding-economics), it looks a lot more like three periods of relative stability (very roughly 1900-1915, 1921-1940, and 1948-2000) broken up by some very turbulent times. The entire spike after 2001 looks extremely exceptional. The other way to read it is that it's basically level/very-lightly-trending-up from 1900-2000, with a dip for the two World Wars.

Whatever - it's abundantly clear that something very different happened after 2001, that was substantially more different than the end of World War 2.