“The rise in sales is an important first step, ” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Lehman Brothers. “But I wouldn’t call it the end of the problems in housing.”

While we discussed our exotic new family constellations (I have six brothers, three sisters - two real, four half, three step), they were rather left out and would stutter: "Mine are still together."

When one fund broke that promise after Lehman Brothers collapsed, the run on money funds threatened to do so much damage to the credit markets that the Fed felt compelled to step in.