Rating: 
Summary: Right on the money
Review: Well-written and (probably) painfully true. Rubino's thesis is that housing is the "last and in many ways the most dangerous in a long line of financial bubbles," and that when this bubble bursts we're all in trouble. The numbers are compelling, and one chart especially is worth the price of the book all by itself: It shows that in the U.S., debt is soaring while the economy just sits there. If your family was borrowing $5 for every new dollar you earned, you'd be on the way to bankruptcy court. But it's the whole country, which means, according to Rubino, that we're headed for a major crack-up. The dollar will fall, gold will soar and everything related to housing will crash.Generally, Rubino presents this sometimes-complex material in clear terms and easy-to-follow examples. A few stretches are a little heavy, as when he's explaining things like derivatives and securitization. But he warns about this in the intro, and recommends just skipping to the last part of a section if you get bogged down. I did this a couple of times and still feel like I got the gist of the argument.
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