Rising damp

LAST November the American publisher of those bright-yellow books that claim to help “dummies” master everything from trigonometry to anger management released “Flipping Houses for Dummies”. It promised to teach would-be property moguls how to “lay the foundation for successful flipping and bring home the bucks”. Four months later, it is the seemingly indomitable housing market that has flipped. One of its main engines of growth, the subprime-mortgage industry, is in free-fall. Where it lands is anyone's guess.