This is a very good point from Dean Baker. We’re told that we mustn’t regulate subprime lending, despite the vast wave of foreclosures it has produced, because to do so would prevent minorities and other disadvantaged Americans from achieving the dream of homeownership. Yet homeownership is already back down to about what it was before the big wave of subprime lending began. All that the wonders of the financial market achieved, it seemed, was to give a lot of people a brief taste of homeownership, followed by a nasty foreclosure.