Sorry to miss yesterday’s post, but I spent the day in Story Land. For those of you not from New England, this is a small amusement park built around fairy tales—Cinderella’s castle, Heidi’s grandfather’s hut, the Three Billy Goats Gruff, and similar exhibits. It is perfect for small children, and my four-year-old son had what was possibly the best day of his life. We opened and closed the park and had a two-hour drive each way—thus, the day was not conducive to posting a blog.

It was an interesting day, though. From my son’s perspective, the whole thing was free, as it was paid for by a higher power (me). The visitors covered an amazingly wide range of people—Hasidim, Muslims, WASPs (me again), multiple races and socio-economic classes—all united in letting our kids have fun. The park itself was very well designed, well run, and incredibly effective at extracting money from dad’s wallet.

One of my newly adopted habits, as I discussed in my “Good Habits” post a few days ago, is to read a chapter a day from a book that covers something I want to know more about. Given the major role China plays in how the world is evolving, I had become fairly current on the Chinese economy, but I had no in-depth knowledge of the country itself.

I still don’t, really. What I do have is a much better sense of the political and historical context in which China makes decisions. I would describe Henry Kissinger’s On China as applied history—history applied to an understanding of how a country is likely to act in the future . . . and why. In that sense, it succeeds well.

We talked yesterday about housing. We discussed how it is bottoming, how it is poised—at some point—to start a recovery, and how that is a very good thing for the economy. It’s good for several reasons—largely because of the employment the sector generates and the multiplier effects it has on other areas of the economy.

Housing can be considered a durable good. Because it is a long-term asset that is purchased with financing, it reflects, to some extent, the buyer’s vision of the future. The stabilization and incipient improvement of this sector is also a sign that the U.S. population has started to recover psychologically from the crisis, which is an underappreciated element of what has to happen before recovery really kicks in.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about how financial factors and decision models are receding in importance compared with other, noneconomic factors. While there are examples around the world that illustrate the process, it still is not necessarily apparent, given the constant financial headlines, whether and why this should be the case. I think it is helpful to take a look at the same phenomenon from another angle to show why this change has to happen and why, in the end, it will be a good thing.