My parents bought their first house in the 1980s for $30,000. That same house today is worth $150,000 — the same street, the same walls, just 40 years older and five times the price.

Most people recognize this as inflation. Prices rise over time, and as long as your income keeps pace, you absorb it. It feels like the natural order of things.

But what happened in 2008 was not the natural order of things.