When we were kids, we loved to buy or mix up a bottle of soapy water and blow bubble. After a while, you learn some of the many factors involved in getting the biggest possible bubble to last as long as possible. You have to have just the right mixture of soap and water. There needs to be just enough breeze to keep the bubble aloft, but not so much that the bubbles break before taking flight. And finally, you have learn to blow just the right amount of air at just the right speed for just the right length of time so that you make that perfect bubble. This process can take a long time, maybe a whole afternoon and maybe even require a whole new batch of soapy solution.
One thing that always held true is that whenever the bubbles burst they would spray "stuff" on anyone nearby. The bigger the bubble--the more stuff that gets sprayed when they burst. The closer you were to the bubble when it burst, the more "stuff" gets on you. Many times, it was your little brother or sister or a neighbor who caused the bubble to burst, but you still got "stuff" on you if you were nearby.
Well, we blew the housing "bubble" up way beyond its capacity for the conditions. We over mixed the solution with higher and higher home prices that seemed to hold well enough at time, but that's probably because we were blocking most of the financing "breeze" with extra risky loans that eventually broke free. The whole housing "bubble" game got to be so much fun that more and more people joined in, and mixed more of that solution of bigger, more expensive houses and more neighborhoods. Unfortunately, most people weren't taking the time necessary to really examine all the critical factors needed for safely blowing up the biggest possible bubble that would stay aloft for a long time.
The bubble burst, and it was a huge bubble, so we are all trying to wash the "stuff" off of us and sometimes off our neighbors. The clean up may take a while, but just like those backyard bubble sessions, everyone needs to do most of their own clean up work.
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