housing and the economy

this is why the housing boom is a problem for the economy as a whole:

“The red-hot housing sector … which typically represents just 5 percent of the total economy, accounted for an astounding 50 percent of the overall growth in the U.S. economy by the first half of this year, and more than half of private payroll jobs created since 2001 fall were in housing-related sectors,” Merrill Lynch said in a report this week.

and this about the growing danger of foreclosures:

As home prices rise, people can’t afford them,” says Stuart Feldstein, president of SMR. The study, he adds, highlights the fact that most people haven’t saved enough money to buy ever-more-expensive homes. Home buyers are “using much more leverage,” he says.
Americans’ ability to take on massive mortgage debt has been fueled by the availability of “exotic” mortgages, such as interest-only loans and adjustable-rate mortgages … “Home prices are going through the roof, forcing people to turn to exotic loans and unorthodox financing,” says Baker. “These people have no room for error.”

right, so people are stretched thin and buying houses they can barely afford. the savings rate in the country is hovering near NEGATIVE territory. and the economy is being propped up by all this phenomenal wealth being generated by…the housing market.
who will bail out the GOVERNMENT this time, after they bail out the banks whose irresponsible lending and “exotic” mortgage writing put the economy at large in danger?