The Real Threat Isn't Housing

摘要

The quickest way to get run over is to look the wrong way when you cross the street. Right now everyone is worrying—or obsessing—about a potential housing bust. And why not? You can hear the screams issuing from California to Florida as subprime borrowers and lenders take it on the chin. But the biggest danger is not the housing decline, however painful it might be. Instead, an 18-wheeler that threatens to flatten the economy and the financial markets is barreling at us from another direction altogether: weak productivity growth.