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The result of such speculation by thousands of Wall Street gamblers was that millions of Americans who played by the rules, and put money each month away in their 401(k) plans and elsewhere, lost much of their retirement savings.

I agree with 90% of what VDH has to say here.

However, nobody wants to recognize that some significant percentage of the money ordinary people "lost" was in their account, albeit on paper only, because of the inflated values created by the bubble.

IOW, some significant percentage of the roughly 30% of value the average investor has lost was never really there at all. (Unless he had the good fortune or sense to sell at the top and leave another poor schnook holding the bag.)

Even the illusion of value was there only as a result of the bubble. Yet every article I've seen implies that the high values really existed and deflated only because of the actions of these designated villains.

Good for pointing this out!

And yet, one of the popular Conservative Radio talkshow hosts has had a mortgage broker as his main sponser, who has been adament, even through the fall, about pulling out one's equity! As if it was real value.