JWM, I love your terse comments. Others many not get it, but I do. 🙂

Felix, yeah, overnight, all the inventory of foreclosures, short-sales, distress sales will be all gone. Poof!! Don’t wait another day! Buy now before you miss out!!

I believe that Shiller said that we are richer, as a society, when housing prices drop. He’s looking at it from a macro perspective. The wealth of nations is based on the standard of living of the citizens. If you own and live in an old decrepit apartment in New York or Moscow with bad heat, you might have paper wealth, but your standard of living is low. That’s the context in which “rich” needs to be understood.