by Calculated Risk on 5/30/2007 12:10:00 AM

From the WaPo: An ATM That's Out of Money

For years ... people used their homes as glorified ATMs, pulling out money for all sorts of reasons. The trend helped support continued economic growth and recovery from the 2001 recession.

But now people are reining in their spending, raising concern that their collective decisions could nudge a sluggish U.S. economy into recession.

This has all been discussed here before, but it is now on the front business page of the WaPo. As an aside, I believe Fleck was the first writer to refer to mortgage equity withdrawal as the "housing ATM".