Boom to bust in the motherlode

It was just a couple years ago that newspapers all across the land were full of stories about how wealthy we had all become, largely due to rising home prices. Nobel prize winning economists were even justifying the zero percent savings rate by marveling at how much higher asset prices had moved.

Now that home prices are in a virtual free fall, the nation's newspapers are filled with stories of lament, anger, and disillusionment and you don't hear too much about the typical homeowner's balance sheet anymore.