I have read many well written books and this tome ranks highly among them. Ms. Katz digs deep into the underlying causes of the current economic morass that our nation is languishing through. She uses many factual accounts to help illustrate the machinations that brought us to this point. As a conservative, conventional homeowner I was mystified by how so many people got into so much trouble through the acquisition of a property. As a 401k/403b holder I was also stupefied by how my investments could tank so hard & so very rapidly. Ms. Katz explains just how this could, and did, happen. Her writing is direct and to the point but flows well and is an easy read for such a technical work. I have to admit to still being somewhat confused, but I fear that is on account of my understanding and not her writing. I only hope that Barney Frank and most of our other legislators take the time to read this work. Well done, Ms. Katz. What is your next challenge?

The mortgage-led decline of the American economy has been ample fodder for books on the topic; perhaps the only bright sign in an otherwise dim economy. "Our Lot" is an attempt to explain one of the many causes for the mortgage-led real estate bubble, particularly focusing on Clinton Administration era efforts to increase the percentage of home ownership rates. Katz focuses on the consequences of these efforts, but at times it's difficult to tell what part of the political spectrum she is coming from. Clearly "Our Lot" is not a polemic, but a dissection of how the real estate bubble came to be created (albeit in part), how the bubble grew (again, in part) and how it came to burst (again, only in part). While Katz indeed does a vast amount of research and interviews, she is only focusing on a narrow segment of the real estate boom; those individuals who secured mortgage loans that were wholly inappropriate for them. While she does also include the flippers, schemers, and various lowlifes that populated the real estate boom she's only focusing on the narrow microeconomic aspects of the real estate boom and not the larger macroeconomic aspects of the boom that truly doomed and crippled the economy, such as the derivatives markets, mortgage backed securities and so on.

It is easy to identify with the unfortunate souls Katz chronicles and the difficulties they've faced, and to question the wisdom of Clinton-era concepts for increasing the percentage of homeownership, but the problem is that Katz lacks a central thesis or argument. Yes, what happened is terrible and it shouldn't happen again and government is partly responsible, but aren't the people who took these loans also partly responsible? Wasn't the repackaging of these loans and the resultant collapse in the markets for them equally reprehensible? What of the massive buildup in housing stock far beyond the ability to absorb the capacity a horrendous waste of resources (as chronicled in The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream)? Ultimately "Our Lot" is wholly unsatisfying regardless of your political beliefs; it's hardly a damning condemnation of Clinton-era policies that led us here, it isn't satisfying for social conservatives who feel the borrowers are equally to blame, and it instead turns into an unsatisfying whine-fest about how awful it all is with no call to action. There are undoubtedly better books out there on the subject of the whole mortgage loan led economic fiasco that are told with better clarity and sense of purpose. On the whole that's what is lacking here; Katz tells a compelling story that is truly captivating and by turns sad and tragic, but there is absolutely no sense of purpose.

"Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us" by Alyssa Katz, a liberal journalist and NYU journalism professor who writes for Mother Jones, is the best book yet on how the sacred cause of "diversity" merged with pedal-to-the-metal capitalism to bring us the Great Mortgage Meltdown.

The book hasn't garnered the attention it deserves -- probably because it makes clear the bipartisan responsibility of both her opponents on the Right and her friends on the Left.

Our Lot focuses equally on the misdeeds of both capitalists and leftists. But I won't give the boiler room boys as much attention in this review because they're a more familiar tale, while Katz's reporting on the role of her side is compelling "testimony against interest".

Katz is remarkably frank about how government programs and political pressure to boost minority homeownership helped blow up the economy. She's particularly good at explicating how leftist housing activists, such as ACORN and Gale Cincotta, the godmother of the Community Reinvestment Act, worked with Democratic politicians such as Bill Clinton, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, and Jim Johnson, CEO of Fannie Mae, to lay the groundwork for the Bubble and Bust.

Katz doesn't devote quite as much depth to the Bush Administration's culpability (which, to my mind, is even greater). Perhaps she lacked Republican contacts to give her the kind of inside story she got on her own party's mistakes.

Still, Our Lot makes clear that on housing policy, the Clinton-Bush years form a single continuum with one overarching plan: boost the minority homeownership rate by lowering credit standards. I call it the Era of Multi-Culti Capitalism.

And there's little reason to think that its lessons have been learned yet.

Throughout these last few years I have taken pride in our creative Wall Streeters. Then Ms. Katz has to ruin it, in "Our Lot." Turns out the current real estate bubble is the product of almost a century of social and financial engineering by the U.S. government, and has happened, though to a lesser extent, at least twice before. This all began during Hoover's day, with liar loans, mortgage securitization, tranching, low/no-down loans, "curb" appraisals, and flipping. Thus, today's outcome cannot surprise anyone who knows their financial history (like Katz), and we can't even credit Wall Street with being creative. Truly, the road to hell is paved, repaved, and repaved - with good intentions (build stronger families and more pleasant communities, boost the economy, help minorities).

Actually, this crisis did bring about two innovations, per Katz. We went from building homes for a lifetime, to building only to resell within 5 years (much cheaper and faster). And, we found lots of overseas "investors" (suckers) to participate.

So, file this (the experiences, not the book) all under "Lessons Unlearned." And I'm still proud of Wall Street - home of Bernard Madoff, Citibank, AIG, Lehman Brothers, short-term thinking, CDOs, and expert bond-rating firms!

This book is right up there with John Talbot's books in detailing the causes and the effects of the housing bubble on America. It is a "page turner" that names names, and examines in depth the gullibility of Americans who should have known much better, for "get-rich-quick" Ponzi schemes that simply made no sense even if they did have the imprimater of Alan Greenspan and both Republican and Democratic presidents. Perhaps most important, Alyssa Katz shows us why the housing crash will not be going away anytime soon as it's ultimate evil was that it converted us into a nation of debters who voluntarily sold themselves literally into debt/wage slavery and inevitably poverty while enriching a small number of creditors.

If you are at all curious about how we got to the disaster we currently face in the housing market, this is an excellent overview. It puts the current crisis into a broad context, showing how even well-intentioned changes in housing policy decades in the past created the breeding ground for the housing bubble and accompanying toxic mortgage debt crisis. "Our Lot" is effective both on the macro and micro level - Alyssa Katz handles both complicated policy histories and tragic personal stories of people caught up in the housing bubble with sensitivity and depth. She also raises some fundamental questions about the "American Dream" of home ownership, and whether we need some new dreams. A great work of journalism.