ubernoir wrote:
i trust Paul Krugman's opinion on this as someone who knows far more about it than me and I remember reading him talking about a housing bubble and saying it was dangerous rather a long time ago Jan 2006. It makes rather interesting reading now although I didn't take it too seriously at the time.

Out of curiosity I searched the MemeStreams archive. The earliest reference that I can find to something being wrong with housing is from DMV, who posted about it in April, 2004. The first actual reference to the word "bubble" is in a post from Noteworthy from May, 2005. Its an offhand reference - as if the idea that there is a bubble is already established and we're just waiting for it to pop. A week later these comments about certain kinds of mortgages being to blame. There were a number of posts about it during the summer of 2005. Apparently the idea was established widely enough that someone was (still is) selling t-shirts mocking it.

In my view 2006 was pretty late to the game. None of us understood that complex debt derivatives were behind this, but (AFAIK) none of us are bankers. All these policy makers and regulators who have been blindsided by this should have known before we did that something was amiss and they should have been able to figure out why and what the consequences were going to be and they should have been able to take preemptive action. They knew. They had to have known because WE KNEW. Why didn't they act?

RE: Op-Ed Columnist - Where Are the Grown-Ups? - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com