The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest

[KurtNYC]

5. Part of this is because of the way we buy real estate in the USA

the 30 year fixed rate mortgage here produces higher default rates than the loans in europe which are backed by government bonds or guarantees and are typically variable rate. We have one bubble after another while Canada has stricter laws on banks and reaps the benefits.

Another recent factor is the newly legal ability of US financial institutions to bet against their own customers. Not much incentive in that equation to "do right by the customer." In many cases it may more profitable for the bank to put someone in a house they will default on than to ride out the 360 monthly payments. IRAs, mutual funds, etc are all areas where banks can now bet against you. So we have moved from something analogous to a casino, to a casino where the HOUSE can break you all the faster by sitting down at the card table to bet against you while looking at, even controlling what card comes out of the deck next.