Disconcerting

Profitability of the Financial Industry, 2,000 to present:

Monthly US Home Price Indes, 1991 to present (red line inserted by me at approximately the point at which Financial Industry profits turned around):

Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for NAR, a couple of weeks ago:

The aggregate homeowners’ real estate equity stood at $6.1 trillion today versus $13 trillion in 2006 according to Flow of Funds data from the Federal Reserve. According to Census, there are 74 million homeowners. So on average, the average equity per homeowner in 2011 is $82,000, which is down from $170,000 in 2006.

So, who’s paying for the bad behavior of the Financial Industry that led up to the collapse of our economy?  Well, I guess there’s no real surprise there.

And, by the way, when we talk about ‘redistribution of wealth,’ let’s be very clear about the direction in which the redistribution is going.