Housing: The Foundations of the Middle Class Are Crumbling

Bottom line: with the loss of predictability, we've also lost any sense of future financial security.

Home ownership has been the foundation of middle-class stability and security for so long that it defines middle-class status as much as income. From the end of World War II in 1945 on, the deal was simple: buy a house and you'll build equity that's even better than a savings account because you get the tax break of deducting mortgage interest and you g…