Economic Pessimism

I'm more than a bit concerned about this:

"Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, argued with leading real estate analysts who concern that potential buyers have become victims in a speculative property bubble that Federal Reserve is partly in charge for such situation. But Greenspan consider that it was unlikely that either the high level of household debt or the growth in housing prices
represented heavy threats, because Americans appeared to have sufficient resources to maintain meeting their loan payments. "Short of a significant fall in overall household income or in home prices, debt servicing is unlikely to become destabilizing", Greenspan said. The largest risk of a housing bubble would be among people who buy second and vacation properties, consider Greenspan, although those kinds of purchases estimated for only 11 percent of new mortgages in 2003.
Dean Baker, director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, defended opposite opinions saying household finances are shakier than they appear. “Homeowners' equity is a significantly smaller percentage of the value of their homes than it was in the 1970's, even though the population has become older and should have accumulated greater assets and built up a higher
net worth” said Baker."

...thanks Dean, real incomes are also lower than they were in the 70's. So, we're using our equity to buy more crap than ever before on less money. Seems like we might run into some problems when babyboomers are jobless/retiring over the next 10 years.

more economic data:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=6546706