by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Do any of you remember when you could buy an entire house for $35,000? There was a time in America when middle class Americans could buy a house and have it paid off in just a few years. But now existing home prices have soared into the stratosphere, and lumber prices are making it ridiculously expensive to build new homes. As you will see below, skyrocketing lumber prices have driven up the average price of a new home in the United States by almost $36,000 over the past 12 months. That is absolutely nuts, but everyone agrees that even more inflation is on the way.
Of course it isn’t just lumber prices that are going haywire. In California, the price of gasoline has almost reached five dollars a gallon in some areas, and the price for premium gasoline has almost reached six dollars…