U.S.: There's No Place Like Home--for Economic Growth  Housing
is an American obsession. A whole cable network is devoted to
caring for home and garden, shelter magazines populate the
newsstands, and the Internet is peppered with do-it-yourself Web
sites. Housing captures the limelight in the economy as well.
And while its performance in 2002 may not be as stellar as in
recent years, worries about housing bubbles and construction
stalling out the recovery are overblown.  To be sure, housing is
a major economic sector. Home construction has added to real
growth of gross domestic product in each of the past three
years. Plus, housing influences consumer demand for everything
from carpeting to appliances to dinnerware. In the first
quarter, such spending jumped at a 17% annual rate. Homebuilding
and spending on home goods together account for 8.7% of the U.S.
economy. In comparison, business investment in information-
processing equipment accounts for 6.1%, and federal spending on
goods and services is 6.2%.  Equ