A long, long time ago in what surely must have been an alternative universe, a government official told us that the mortgage crisis was self-contained. At the time it struck me as odd. It seemed to indicate a belief that the housing market was its own little corner of the economy, without much impact on the rest of our economy or our lives.

I haven't heard anyone use that phrase in awhile.

Now that we're facing a $700 billion bail out of the financial industry, here's the real problem with those earlier statements. First of all, they show a shocking lack of understanding of the importance of real estate in our economy. (By people who are paid a lot to know better!)

Second, the phrase, and the accompanying blather, was used to justify why there was no need to help out struggling home owners who were losing their homes to foreclosure.

And, so the hole got bigger, more people lost their homes. And, what do you know, it turns out that when enough people lose their homes, banks lose money! If enough homes get lost and enough banks get hurt, then there is reason for the government to step in and help.

I'm going to suggest that if the government had been willing to back stop struggling homeowners two years ago, we'd never been looking at this absurd $700 billion price tag now.

If I sound disgusted today, I am. The people who should have known better sat on their hands and watched this unfold. And, even now, as the bail out is being debated, there's a huge amount of push back about helping homeowners. Mind you this is the case even though I've heard several interviews with financial efforts admitting that foreclosures are really the root of the whole problem. So, we're going to put up $700 billion without addressing the root cause. Does this make sense to anyone?

Someone's going to have to help me make sense of this one! Feel free to share your wisdom!