The fetishization of property ownership has been a scourge on our society for the last decade. We should pay our mortgages because we want a home, not because we think our plot of land has some kind of future value. In this article from Maclean’s magazine, we learn of the freefall in prices, specifically in Vancouver. I believe that the property prices freefall neatly encapsulates what has been going wrong with the North American (and European) economy overall: a total disconnect between real value and speculative value. How else to explain how thousands of expert economists, and real estate gurus, have suddenly had their predictions collapse like a house of cards?

For a thorough-going analysis of the current crisis, this interview with Robert Brenner from UCLA can’t be beat. He puts it all into historical context, arguing that capitalism has struggled with an increasingly low return on investment since the 1970s.

To understand the current collapse, you have to demonstrate the connection between the weakness of the real economy and the financial meltdown. The main link is the economy’s ever increasing dependence on borrowing to keep it turning over and the governments‘ ever greater reliance on asset price run-ups to allow that borrowing to continue.

If anyone persists in the belief that this is a cyclical downturn like any other, or that Obama is going to rapidly save us, just read the damn interview!