MATTHEW YGLESIAS WRITES:

One thing that doesn’t get talked about enough is that people in Washington are pretty out of touch with the basic economic picture in the United States. Not in the usual, pat, pseudo-populist “oh you’re out of touch” sense but in a pretty literal one — the DC metro area is both quite affluent and economically unusual.

That’s right, notwithstanding the D.C. area housing bust. But the difference is even greater than Yglesias suggests. Bad news for the country is usually good news for the DC area, since it tends to promote more government programs and spending, meaning more jobs not so much for government workers as for lobbyists, contractors, and other hangers-on, And journalists and pundits!

In the comments, people talk about different parts of the country and how they’re doing. Around Knoxville, things aren’t too bad. Houses aren’t selling very fast, but in my opinion that’s partly because people are asking too much. In a development near me, people are trying to sell houses that they bought a couple of years ago for $300-350K for over $400K. They’re actually asking more, in some cases, than the developer is asking for brand-new houses in the neighborhood; the brand-new houses, meanwhile, seem to still be selling. Meanwhile, I see lots of help-wanted signs. Things may slow down, but at the moment it’s certainly not visible to the casual observer. In other places — Cleveland, for example, or Detroit — it certainly is.