In today’s Sunday Business section of the New York Times, Daniel Akst writes an interesting piece in his On The Contrary column called [“Pop Goes the Bubble? Maybe It’s Time to Cheer”](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/business/yourmoney/18cont.html?pagewanted=print)

The premise is that having housing markets cool now rather than later is much better for nearly all of us. Here’s a few of the points made in the article about the housing market now:

* Encourages speculation
* Promotes sprawl which increases fuel consumption
* Diverts human capital
* Weakens financial system by proliferation of creative financing
* Contributes to social and economic inequality

A few problems with the article, (but not the premise)

* People have made enormous profits (Thats why speculation is on the rise)
* A record number of individuals have become first time buyers (Thats why rents have fallen until recently)
* It has created a lot of jobs (job creation flows to where the money is)
* Housing has helped the overall economy climb out of a recession with help from the consumer

>But as the economist Herbert Stein once dryly observed,
>if something cannot go on, it will stop.