Britons sometimes complain about how hard it was to get a mortgage back then and the high interest rates and down payments, and how wonderful financial engineering has been for allowing people to finally get on the property ladder. (The last time I heard this said with a straight face in front of a roomfull of people was a couple of weeks before the Lehman Brothers collapse...)

Anyway, Volcker raised interest rates above 20% in 1982 and that propagated to the whole world...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma