Well its good to see so many of these young parents with such high confidence in their income prospects. I agree with many of the points that peterb makes about recessions and unemployment. IMO that will be the last shoe that will drop in this debacle. If you are independently wealthy then you will be pretty safe weathering this housing market. If you are a young family dependent on income from a business large or small I suggest you sit down and think this thing through. The crux of the debate about this housing correction/crash seems to have found its way to the desirable areas of California with good schools. We are getting to the nuts and bolts of how the upper middle class will be impacted in this. I grew up in a WASPY upper middle class household so I understand some of the assumptions about life one can make coming from this background. In light of the current set of circumstances that we find ourselves it is my opinion that some of these assumptions may (in many cases already have) prove financially devastating. Basically that assumption is that “nothing really bad can happen to me”, a belief that we are entitled to a certain standard of living that in many cases we have known all of our lives.

Now sit back and try to grasp the magnitude of what we are witnessing right now. This is beyond a housing debate. We are witnessing basically what amounts to the collapse of the western financial credit structure as we know it. The only reference point we have to such an event is the financial turmoil of the Great Depression. Now this event could….bear with me….this event could impact you. If you are dependent on a business for income as many of these people including myself that are competing for these homes and lifestyle are, whether you like it or not you are at risk of getting swept up in the inevitable economic carnage that has yet to show its true impact. The final chapter of this housing bubble may just be the worst. Just my two cents.