Nothing like the Great Depression

Politico reports:

Over the past decade, homeownership has dropped by the largest margin since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

I am getting a little tired of all these stories about how our economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. The Census Bureau said that the drop was 66% to 65%, compared to a drop from 48% to 44% in the 1930s. We had govt policies that artificially homeownership and housing prices, and they got out of control. A 1% correction is a very slight one.

The economic crisis of 2008 was not even any worse that the one in 2000. The 2008 one only looked worse because of high-profile over-leveraged Wall Street speculators who went begging for bailouts. Losses occurred when banks made bad loans to people buying houses at the peak of the housing boom in 2005. The paper losses in 2008 were comparable to the paper losses in 2000.

I think that Pres. Barack Obama will eventually be said to have had an easy presidency. The economy was in relatively good shape except for the real estate correction. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had already been won, and there were no major foreign policy crises. There were no natural disasters like Katrina, and no big terrorist attacks. He had firm control of the Congress for his first two years. He got the economic program he wanted. It just didn't work, and it is going to get worse when Obamacare goes into effect.