In fact, that brutal housing price plunge amounted to a $400 billion per year "savings" at the $1.5 trillion per year run-rate of residential housing turnover. So with all that extra money in their pockets consumers were positioned to spend-up a storm on shoes, shirts and dinners at the Red Lobster.

Except they didn't.  And, no, it wasn't because housing is a purported  "capital good" or that transactions are largely "financed" at upwards of 85% leverage ratios. None of those truisms changed consumer incomes or spending power per se.