Focus, People! American Housing Obsession Unhealthy: Expert

Enough already! That's the clarion call of Amity Shlaes, economic historian with the Council on Foreign Relations and Brooklyn Heights resident, who argues, with the help of Nobel laureate and economist Edmund Phelps, that Americans need to stop obsessing about the "housing crisis" and focus on things more integral to our economic health -- like, oh, say, productivity? "It used to be said that the business of America was business,'' Mr. Phelps told Ms. Shlaes, in her column for Bloomberg News. "Now the business of America is homeownership.'' Ms. Shlaes elaborates: Like an apartment building, the Phelps argument works on multiple levels. The first is obvious. The federal government allocates too many resources to housing. Back in 2005, when the troubles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't yet commanding the front page so... [read full story]