One of the greatest things that a society or civilization can have is "buy-in" from its citizenry. This includes things like voting, serving in the military or even a stronger tie such as owning a piece of the nation. Perhaps you might call this a sense of nationalism that comes from owning a piece of America. Home ownership helps boost the value of ownership societies and it makes people believe in personal responsibility, it lowers crime and causes communities to unite in a common cause.

Even though more Americans own homes now then have ever in the history of our nation, we also have a problem where the home equity value is less on a percentage per house than it has ever been also. Many folks are upside down in equity, essentially meaning they do not own anything but a piece of paper or debt.

We know from the last real estate crash, before this present one, that when home equity becomes negative that more and more people walk away from their homes and then they become disenchanted with our society, civilization and even capitalism itself. This is unfortunate and it also shows a sense of irresponsibility on the part of those people who dug their own grave of debt. Nevertheless, in the blame game world of human civilizations and societies people who experience the hardships of life usually try to blame someone else for these challenges.

So, what started out to be a great advancement in the concept an ownership society in the United States of America, as homebuyers bid up the prices to an unreasonable place, eventually became an economic disaster for all. Now, in it looks that after the bottom dropped out, the repercussions  might end up causing more long-term harm than good, and we are not out of the woods yet.

The Federal Reserve said that the housing market collapse is not as bad as people portray it and this is what they are suppose to say to prevent economic chaos and boost sinking public perception and consumer confidence. Of course, for every positive spin put out there in the media, there are and were 10-negative pundit comments to match.

When people walk away from their loans this can cause a problem in the banking system and American citizens are already in too much debt with short-term loans and credit cards. An ownership society is a great idea and we should commend our leadership for working towards that noble goal, but at the same time we must be very careful that when we talk about ownership we are not just talking about debt; rather actual ownership.

Owning a piece of America should not be merely owning an overwhelming responsibility of stress to make payments on something that is not his worth as much as the loan value. It seems that in our rush to attain the ultimate in our Ownership Society, that irrational exuberance once again got the best of us, both in the real estate industry and with the public at large. Something for you to contemplate in 2008.