And, wait a minute. Are people really saving more now? In fact, savings are up and down lately—up in the third quarter, down in the second. People saved at a higher rate at the end of 2004, when the housing market was still strong, than at anytime this year. The link to the housing market? There isn’t any.

And one last thing:

It’s not even clear that falling house prices are such a bad thing. They don’t really matter for families who aren’t planning to move. They don’t even matter much for families moving to a similar house in a similar market. The house they are buying will have gotten cheaper, too.

Families hoping to buy their first house, on the other hand, clearly benefit.

With foreclosures hitting 220,000 a month, talk of silver linings verges on bad taste, even in an analysis piece.

But even for young renters, getting credit will not be easy. Indeed, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, says first-time buyers are “in big trouble,” in a NewsHour segment titled “Housing Market Decline Impacts First-time Buyers, Lenders.”

But, sure, for the young, relatively well-off, who have good credit, a housing and market crash will help, assuming there’s no recession and you keep your job.

So what?

Again, we understand the spirit of the story. But this time the counterintuitive angle asks too much.

We would suggest a counter-counterintuitive spin, the one that fully prepares readers for what’s coming.

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