Well that's one way to look at it....but on paper or not, if you went to retire you could "cash" that paper in and do it.
Folks built equity in their homes and worked. It was the American way. They would retire after 30 years, sell their homes and move to some place where white hair was the norm, buy a cheap place, live off the interest and social security and pension. A darn comfortable life...til the end.
Now...the top half of that process is gone. Zip...Nadda! Call it paper if you want, but what was so wrong with picking up the newspaper at night and seeing that your investments were way ahead of what you had expected, and after doing that, folks headed out and feeling the wealth bought new cars, and trucks, and sleds, and homes and furniture and took trips to timbucktoo.
For example the Dot Com era was a great time to be around. Folks were working, making money buying stuff and paying taxes. So much so that we brought the debt down amazingly fast. Why was that bad???
But some didn't like that. Mr. Irrational Exuberance, took it personally and would work hard to deflate that process. In reality, we should have hired an assassin and shot that guy...we do that for a whole lot less than that. But these were the leaders we let handle the store...and they sold US a bill of goods.
Now you pick up the newspaper and say....guess we will try and get that old lawn mower going one more year. It plain sucks....and most of the folks who lost that money had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It was decisions that were made at the top of the pyramid that caused it and the really sad fact is that though they got hit too those bums, they aren't "feeling it" like the rest of the Moms and Pops who are the real backbone of the country.
Too much stuff in the country gets rammed down our throats as good for US...., and they aren't even polite about shoving it there while their are doing it.
