It is starting to feel like the endgame. Over the past decade, US consumers have grown ever more dependent on rising asset prices. After the burst of the internet bubble, the Federal Reserve and other central banks swiftly stepped in to swamp the world with liquidity. As Jeffrey Lacker of the Richmond Fed has helpfully pointed out, US monetary policy even now is, if anything, still somewhat accommodative. A glance at, say, interest rates compared to nominal growth would certainly suggest as much, if past experience is a guide.

The difference, this time round, is not just housing. The amount of damage the fairly mild downturn in home prices has done so far is certainly a reminder of how much of recent growth was a consequence of consumers that used their homes as automated teller machines. But it should hardly have come as a surprise that this would eventually come to haunt the construction industry and, more recently, subprime lenders.