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A home is a home, and excess supply leads to prices falling.

Americans now know that housing prices can go down and they can go down by 10, 20, 30, and in some cases, 40 or 50 percent. We know they can go down. But five years ago, we thought they could only go up.

It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears.

Prices are going up. Unemployment continues to go up. And we have not had the necessary correction for the financial bubble created by our Federal Reserve system.

So much value has been lost in the housing market that people are now buying. If there's any activity in the housing market, it's because values have plummeted to such depths that the 47% can now afford to live in a government-purchased house, or something like that.

People are always saying that prices are too high. When they turn out to be right, we anoint them. When they turn out to be wrong, we ignore them. They are typically right and wrong about half the time.

As winter weather settles in around the country, millions of American families are facing skyrocketing home heating prices with even greater impact if cold temperatures persist into the spring.

Prices have stayed up because people in control of supply decided they could keep them up.