“Here’s a reminder about a problem that still doesn’t get the attention that it deserves: Housing has blown a giant smoking hole in the middle of our economy, and the consequences continue to impede the pace of recovery.”

“A new paper presented Friday at a monetary policy conference in New York puts some interesting new numbers on the scope of the problem.”

“The pace of recovery since the financial crisis has been less than half as fast as after the last two major recessions, which ended in 1975 and 1982. In first 10 quarters after those recessions, the economy grew by 13.4 percent; in the wake of this recession, the economy grew by only 6.2 percent.”

“And, the paper says, ‘more than half the underperformance in this recovery is associated with housing-related sectors.'”

“Yes, that’s right. Housing is more than half of our problem.”

Read the full story here.