> There's much stuff to debate on the paragraph you quote. But it may
> not be as silly as it may seem at first sight.
>
Again, I like Laibman, for what it's worth.
But I don't think there's anything mysterious going on here. It was an asset bubble. Asset bubbles have been happening for centuries. You can analyze them as minutely as you want but they all basically follow the same pattern. Prices start going up because people expect them to keep going up. Then at some point the bubble bursts because it sinks in that prices are too high. Debt both fuels the price inflation and is in turn fueled by it (since rising asset values act as collateral). The exact timing and micro-mechanisms are interesting but beside the point here. So..... when bubbles burst, is that always due to a tacit agreement among capitalists? Or just this time? Is that what made the Nasdaq bubble pop?
But even that is sort of beside the point. The thing that went really off the rails was the idea that the ruling class felt threatened by the expansion of working-class home ownership and decided it must be stopped because it exerted some sort of de-proletarianizing force. Frankly that's crazy in so many ways I don't know where to start. The capitalists must have been really mad at every president since Harding for promoting mass home ownership!
SA