Before leaving the topic of the latest Case-Shiller home price data (the S&P site is still unavailable, at least from my computer) and looking at the most recent consumer confidence data that can only be described as “disastrous”, it seemed worthwhile to share a few of Jim Kunstlers thoughts about the nation’s housing market from his most recent missive.

Faced with the hangover of a housing bubble, the president’s team has insidiously nationalized the racket and is doing everything possible to keep housing prices unrealistically inflated, so that nobody still lucky enough to have a median income can afford the median price of a house.

Meanwhile, the agencies used to facilitate this accounting shell game — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, etc. — are choking on worthless mortgage contracts and generating ever more new toxic mortgage paper.

That about sums it up but, you’re unlikely to hear similar candor from the vast majority of the mainstream media. Moreover, most government economists still seem to think that the fundamental problem here is that home prices have already fallen too far and another leg down could spell doom for economic growth as we once knew it.

Has the disconnect between policymakers and the real world ever been any greater?