Taken from a housing bubble blog:

Speaking as a person over 60, whose
grandparents were born in the 1880's,
whose parents were 8 and 10 in 1929,
who has had to live very frugally most of her life, (ie no credit because a single parent with dependents), and no extra income beyond my own, who had to repair and cook from scratch, who knows how to make many things from the
raw materials.......we are so screwed.

The only thing I hear is how can I
keep doing the insane, unreasonable
(in view of reality) things I am doing, or what else can I leverage into that will save my butt.

LET ME PUT IT TO YOU BLUNTLY:

IF YOU HAVE TO BORROW IT, OR GET
SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY IT/TAKE ON
PART OF YOUR RISK..............
YOU DON'T HAVE IT.

I was in real estate for 1 year, in 1977,rather unsuccessfully, and glad to leave it; this was when you had to qualify (really) before realtors
would even talk to you. No credit
card debt. Five percent down was
the lowest, 15-20% down common.
I only bring this up to say I know
a little re this area. It is an
obscene travesty visited on the
unsuspecting, culturally brainwashed, and dare I say it,
self-betraying and lazy uninformed
public. Anybody should be able to
multiply out 360 (30years) of payments and see how much they
really pay on a fixed mortgage.Its
an eye opener. Let alone ARM's,
a tool of the evil of Greed. I
remember an article in a union
newsletter in the 1950's warning
people against 30 year mortgages
because of the total cost. ADD IT
UP FOLKS.....Whoops, too late.

My question is, what the heck
do we think we have been doing?
We are completely ignoring almost
everything that matters, or cheapening it, by thinking we can
have more and more for nothing.

By 2009, the Greater Depression.

Learn something basic: how to
garden, repair, sew, cook from
almost nothing, knit, :

GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR EGO
AND GET GROUNDED.IF YOU ARE IN
DEBT WHAT FOR? Do your children
have coats/shoes/boots for a year
or two's growth? Go get them. Do
you have food put aside? Get 100
pounds of this and that and some
good vitamins. Go into debt for
something that MATTERS! Get your
teens out of the mall, off their
phones, and teach them to cook,
using a stove and not a microwave.

Why? Because the further down the
technology chain you go towards the
past, the less expensive it is and
you are going to need every penny.
Make a noodle from scratch. Better
yet, raise a chicken from scratch for the egg in that noodle.