The Bush tax cuts should be extended permanently for families with annual incomes of less than $250,000 and should be phased out slowly for those making more than that. Raising taxes on anyone now, when the economic recovery is so fragile, would be a mistake.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two giant housing-finance institutions made many mistakes over the decades, some of them real whoppers, but causing house prices to soar and then crater during the past decade weren't among them.

Our economy isn't going to recover until the housing market finds its footing.

An overheating economy, characterized by accelerating inflation and rising interest rates, is another precondition for recession. This doesn't describe today's economy.

It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears.

They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny.

A home is still the biggest asset that most Americans own.