It’s becoming clear that, over the last decade, house prices have been wildly and unsustainable high. The news from Nationwide today that house prices have fallen 18 per cent in the last year is both arresting and oddly comforting. Too many young people have been unable to even claw at the first rung of that Jacob’s housing ladder. Far too many mortgage borrowers were forced to take loans that they must have known would lead to negative equity. Bankers, politicians and regulators have all landed in the public blame cross-hairs when, in a way, they should turn the gun on themselves. Private debt is a product of individual greed and capitalist competition, yes. But it was also, in many cases, the only way that…