The current concerns over the problems in the sub prime mortgage market are somewhat overdone. Recent estimates suggest that lenders and investors will lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $125-150 billion over the next 3-5 years. To put that into perspective, the mortgage market totals over $11 trillion.

Put another way, these losses are about six weeks of our trade deficit and four or five months of our Federal budget deficit. This is what you call chump change. In fact, these losses are the cost and consequence of accepting the risk of these loans.

But in this society, no one is ever be forced to face consequences anymore. So, the media wails, the Congress investigates, and the lenders blame it on substance abuse and check into rehab. Meanwhile, here sit the rest of us facing higher mortgage costs and more difficult loan qualification, even with impeccable credit.

While foreclosures will rise and some folks will lose their homes, the major impact of the sub prime problem will fall not on those directly involved but on those trying to buy and sell homes in conventional ways.