Today's Washington Post declares "the housing bubble still burst." This third in a series of articles:

…examined excesses in mortgage lending, the exotic Wall Street securities that masked the real risks of the bubble and made the bust so crushing, and how the downturn touched the lives of ordinary Americans. The report also looked at the government's response — first restrained, then aggressive.

Today's commentary identifies eight significant flash points along the way:

1. Banks
2. Structured finance
3. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
4. Alan Greenspan
5. Ben Bernanke and the Fed:
6. Housing market and mortgage loans
7. The Treasury
8. Global markets

Is that the big picture? Or is the big picture the millions of families who are losing their homes and their life savings? The greater millions who are losing their retirement savings due to "corrections" in the market required because of other people's greed during the bubble?

I feel for you. I feel for all who've been affected by this. I feel for me. We're nearing the age when people used to retire, and our modest portfolio has not only not grown in the last year, it has shrunk. This on the eve of a government wanting us each to take responsibility for managing all of our own retirement savings. (Do you ever feel like stuffing it under a mattress so it at least won't shrink?)

Of course, all is not doom and gloom. Going back before opeople used to retire at 65 - say 100 years or more ago - people were mostly dead by 65-67. American pioneers were often dead by 45. We have greater life expectancy, so it's only right more is expected of us.

This is why I constantly urge people to develop financial literacy skills. Get smarter about your money because you're going to need way more of it than you may have thought!