When the Walls Come Tumbling Down

Editor's Note: This column by Doug Kass is a special bonus for TheStreet.com and RealMoney readers. It first appeared on Street Insight on Aug. 9 at 7:58 a.m. EDT. To sign up for Street Insight, where you can read Kass' commentary in real time, please click here.

Our house is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy, 'cause of you
I'll light the fire
While you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today.

-- Our House, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

At the core of my economic concerns for 2006-08 is the swift and deep deterioration in the U.S. real estate market.

Housing has been -- to paraphrase New York Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson's self-description -- the straw that stirs the drink of the consumer and the economy. ...