[adamlgerber]

I think that each of those statements sound plausible but dont really have much to do with each other. In fact there is a lot of good news even within some of the bad news.

Stock prices reflect the fact that some elements of our economy are very resiliant, including demand, despite major disruptions. Would a crashing stock market have been better news?

Housing market is definitely a mess though but that has less to do with speculation and more to do with significant constraints in supply, especially in our largest and fastest growing cities. More people want to live in most of these cities (because cities are still generally well functioning and important labor markets) than they can house. We can and should build significantly more housing and make a major boom in more construction in our major cities and that would make the speculation in other parts of the market make more sense. Without building then we are walking down a difficult path.