The intersection of politics and economics was big news in a year of rising joblessness, corporate scandals, and soaring deficits. "So much of the political landscape is dominated by economic questions," says Paul Krugman, who was smack in the middle of that intersection as a New York Times Op-Ed writer and prize-winning economist. Now the Princeton University professor is also E&P's columnist of the year.

With a clear, nonacademic writing style, Krugman appeals to many people who normally avoid economics like the plague -- even if they disagree with his political views. This year, Krugman used his high-profile Times forum and economic knowledge to skewer Bush-administration policies in columns with such titles as "The Bully's Pulpit" and "Crony Capitalism, USA." That made him a lightning rod read closely by both liberals and conservatives.

"I get a huge volume of mail," says Krugman, with the correspondence numbering in the hundreds some days. "It's more positive than negative, but very strong and very intense on both sides. And there's hate mail."

LA Weekly's John Powers wrote last week that Krugman is "the president's most effective establishment critic. ... Because he's a renowned Princeton economist who actually understands markets and finance, nobody has more forcefully exposed Bush's lies about his tax plan, Social Security, and corporate reform. Naturally, this has made him a bête noire of the right, subject to frequent intellectual and personal attacks."

Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation conservative think tank in Washington, is less admiring of Krugman: "He's sort of a doctrinaire, left-wing, big-government type. I don't think he's terribly effective."

While Krugman's economic commentary probably didn't change many Bush-administration minds, it did help educate the opposition and the public -- a process that can sometimes pay dividends down the road. But why didn't he have more impact on this month's election results?

Krugman adds that his impact was blunted also because Republicans "were extremely successful at camouflage." He notes that polls suggest many Americans favor paying more attention to corporate reform and are against tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. But Republicans were perceived as similar to Democrats on some key economic issues, says Krugman, while they diverted voters' attention with preparations for a possible war with Iraq.

Krugman says continuing as a professor not only helps give him the knowledge that goes into his column but also makes it easier for him psychologically to take strong Op-Ed stands. "In a sense, I'm moonlighting as a columnist," Krugman says. "I'm probably willing to say unpopular things more than people for whom journalism is their solo career."

Since it is responsible for making these people sick, the Chinese government owes them supplies of the antiretroviral drugs that combat the virus. If the Communist Party used the money squandered on billboards glorifying President Jiang Zemin on these drugs, it could save many thousands of lives.

If it wanted to, China could mobilize a national campaign against AIDS, just like the successful Thai effort. The leaders control the news media, and every village has a family planning officer who sometimes monitors each woman's menstrual cycle. If the authorities just committed themselves to attack AIDS as zealously as they fight unauthorized births, the battle could be won.

[T]his week Al Gore said the obvious. "The media is kind of weird these days on politics," he told The New York Observer, "and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party."

The reaction from most journalists in the "liberal media" was embarrassed silence. I don't quite understand why, but there are some things that you're not supposed to say, precisely because they're so clearly true.

The political agenda of Fox News, to take the most important example, is hardly obscure. Roger Ailes, the network's chairman, has been advising the Bush administration. Fox's Brit Hume even claimed credit for the midterm election. "It was because of our coverage that it happened," he told Don Imus. "People watch us and take their electoral cues from us. No one should doubt the influence of Fox News in these matters." (This remark may have been tongue in cheek, but imagine the reaction if the Democrats had won and Dan Rather, even jokingly, had later claimed credit.)

But my purpose in today's column is not to bash Fox. I want to address a broader question: Will the economic interests of the media undermine objective news coverage?

For most of the last 50 years, public policy took it for granted that media bias was a potential problem. There were, after all, only three national networks, a limited number of radio licenses and only one or two newspapers in many cities. How could those who controlled major news outlets be deterred from misusing their position?

The answer was a combination of regulation and informal guidelines. The "fairness doctrine" forced broadcast media to give comparable representation to opposing points of view. Restrictions on ownership maintained a diversity of voices. And there was a general expectation that major news outlets would stay above the fray, distinguishing clearly between opinion and news reporting. The system didn't always work, but it did set some limits.

Over the past 15 years, however, much of that system has been dismantled. The fairness doctrine was abolished in 1987. Restrictions on ownership have been steadily loosened, and it seems likely that next year the Federal Communications Commission will abolish many of the restrictions that remain -- quite possibly even allowing major networks to buy each other. And the informal rule against blatantly partisan reporting has also gone away -- at least as long as you are partisan in the right direction.

The F.C.C. says that the old rules are no longer necessary because the marketplace has changed. According to the official line, new media -- first cable television, then the Internet -- have given the public access to a diversity of news sources, eliminating the need for public guidelines.

But is this really true? Cable television has greatly expanded the range of available entertainment, but has had far less broadening effect on news coverage. There are now five major sources of TV news, rather than three, but this increase is arguably more than offset by other trends. For one thing, the influence of print news has continued its long decline; for another, all five sources of TV news are now divisions of large conglomerates -- you get your news from AOLTimeWarnerGeneralElectricDisneyWestinghouseNewsCorp.

And the Internet is a fine thing for policy wonks and news junkies -- anyone can now read Canadian and British newspapers, or download policy analyses from think tanks. But most people have neither the time nor the inclination. Realistically, the Net does little to reduce the influence of the big five sources.

In short, we have a situation rife with conflicts of interest. The handful of organizations that supply most people with their news have major commercial interests that inevitably tempt them to slant their coverage, and more generally to be deferential to the ruling party. There have already been some peculiar examples of news not reported. For example, last month's 100,000-strong Washington antiwar demonstration -- an important event, whatever your views on the issue -- was almost ignored by some key media outlets.

For the time being, blatant media bias is still limited by old rules and old norms of behavior. But soon the rules will be abolished, and the norms are eroding before our eyes.

Do the conflicts of interest of our highly concentrated media constitute a threat to democracy? I've reported; you decide.

In one famous case, DTE Energy Corp., parent of Detroit Edison Co., tried to replace older, less efficient propeller blades in several steam turbines at its biggest coal-fired plant. The new blades were 15% more efficient than the old, meaning they could generate 15% more power using the same amount of energy--more power, less pollution. But the Clinton EPA threatened to invoke New Source Review anyway, so the plan was scrapped.

Last week's announcement didn't entirely please industry, which has been hoping that the whole New Source Review process would be scrapped entirely. Their concern is that it is difficult to distinguish between routine maintenance and new investment. Therefore, the New Source Review process is an invitation to future bureaucrats to abuse the regulations. This helps explain why no new refineries have been built in the United States in years, despite the danger of periodic supply disruptions that cause the price of gasoline and other fuels to spike.

[L]ast week the Bush administration announced new rules that would effectively scrap "new source review," a crucial component of our current system of air pollution control. This action, which not incidentally will be worth billions to some major campaign contributors, comes as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to which way the wind is blowing (from west to east, mainly ? that is, states that vote Democratic are conveniently downwind).

But this isn't just a policy change, it's an omen. I hope I'm wrong, but it's likely that last week's announcement marks the beginning of a new era of environmental degradation.

Some background: The origin of new source review lies in a big policy mistake 30 years ago. The original Clean Air Act imposed strict rules on new sources of pollution, but it grandfathered existing power plants, refineries and so on. The idea was that over time, as old facilities closed down, strict rules would become the norm.

What happened instead was predictable: In order to keep their exemptions, polluting industries poured money into existing facilities rather than build new ones. In an attempt to close this loophole, the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring companies that invested in existing facilities to demonstrate that they were merely doing maintenance, rather than creating new capacity that was supposed to face stricter regulation.

Last week's announcement is, I believe, a signal that even Clear Skies isn't going to happen.

Aside from cynicism (which has been an almost infallible guide to administration environmental policy so far), how do I reach that conclusion?

Administration officials still insist, of course, that they plan to proceed with clean air measures. And it's possible that they will eventually do the right thing. But don't hold your breath waiting. In fact, it might be a good idea to breathe deeply now, while you still can.

Chicago Police Cmdr. Lee Epplen said Gutierrez, who has no criminal record, said in a videotaped confession that while quarreling with Stachowicz on Wednesday afternoon in his apartment he was reminded of debates with his mother.

Gutierrez "said he has issues with his mother and the way Mrs. Stachowicz talked to him gave him flashbacks to his mother," Epplen said.

Gutierrez told police he became enraged after Stachowicz questioned him about his sexual orientation, said Cook County Assistant State's Atty. Nancy Galassini during a bond hearing Sunday.

"He got upset with her," Galassini said. "The defendant punched and kicked and stabbed the victim until he was tired. He then placed a plastic garbage bag over her head and strangled her."

You may believe Mary Stachowicz was quite wrong in her convictions, but it is anti-Christian bigotry to believe her death should be ignored, while the death of Matthew Shepard should be marked (as I believe it should have been). The media shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. Somehow, I doubt talk radio and the blogosphere will let them.

The woman who did such great evil is dead, but unfortunately the evil and the church and the society which creates it is not, and it will continue to destroy Nicholas Gutierrez and many others. I shake, safely sitting here at home, fully understanding, and fully familiar with, the horrible impact her words must have had for a man already so terribly damaged by his society, and his own mother.

Friends and family said that it would have been in character for Stachowicz, who has a lengthy list of volunteer work to reach out to someone she thought needed help.

"Those of us who knew her immediately hear her soft voice saying something like, 'God wouldn't approve of the way you're living your life,"' said Mary Coleman, a friend and neighbor. "That's how Mary did things."

Is this good for the gays?
Probably not, but maybe it will strike fear in the hearts of a few fundamentalists:

...

Where do I send a check for his defense fund?

[A]merica, we all know, is the land of opportunity. Your success in life depends on your ability and drive, not on who your father was.

Just ask the Bush brothers. Talk to Elizabeth Cheney, who holds a specially created State Department job, or her husband, chief counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Interview Eugene Scalia, the top lawyer at the Labor Department, and Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services. And don't forget to check in with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and the conservative commentator John Podhoretz.

What's interesting is how little comment, let alone criticism, this roll call has occasioned. It might be just another case of kid-gloves treatment by the media, but I think it's a symptom of a broader phenomenon: inherited status is making a comeback.

It has always been good to have a rich or powerful father. Last week my Princeton colleague Alan Krueger wrote a column for The Times surveying statistical studies that debunk the mythology of American social mobility. "If the United States stands out in comparison with other countries," he wrote, "it is in having a more static distribution of income across generations with fewer opportunities for advancement." And Kevin Phillips, in his book "Wealth and Democracy," shows that robber-baron fortunes have been far more persistent than legend would have it.

But the past is only prologue. According to one study cited by Mr. Krueger, the heritability of status has been increasing in recent decades. And that's just the beginning. Underlying economic, social and political trends will give the children of today's wealthy a huge advantage over those who chose the wrong parents.

For one thing, there's more privilege to pass on. Thirty years ago the C.E.O. of a major company was a bureaucrat -- well paid, but not truly wealthy. He couldn't give either his position or a large fortune to his heirs. Today's imperial C.E.O.'s, by contrast, will leave vast estates behind -- and they are often able to give their children lucrative jobs, too. More broadly, the spectacular increase in American inequality has made the gap between the rich and the middle class wider, and hence more difficult to cross, than it was in the past.

Meanwhile, one key doorway to upward mobility -- a good education system, available to all -- has been closing. More and more, ambitious parents feel that a public school education is a dead end. It's telling that Jack Grubman, the former Salomon Smith Barney analyst, apparently sold his soul not for personal wealth but for two places in the right nursery school. Alas, most American souls aren't worth enough to get the kids into the 92nd Street Y.

Also, the heritability of status will be mightily reinforced by the repeal of the estate tax -- a prime example of the odd way in which public policy and public opinion have shifted in favor of measures that benefit the wealthy, even as our society becomes increasingly class-ridden.

It wasn't always thus. The influential dynasties of the 20th century, like the Kennedys, the Rockefellers and, yes, the Sulzbergers, faced a public suspicious of inherited position; they overcame that suspicion by demonstrating a strong sense of noblesse oblige, justifying their existence by standing for high principles. Indeed, the Kennedy legend has a whiff of Bonnie Prince Charlie about it; the rightful heirs were also perceived as defenders of the downtrodden against the powerful.

But today's heirs feel no need to demonstrate concern for those less fortunate. On the contrary, they are often avid defenders of the powerful against the downtrodden. Mr. Scalia's principal personal claim to fame is his crusade against regulations that protect workers from ergonomic hazards, while Ms. Rehnquist has attracted controversy because of her efforts to weaken the punishment of health-care companies found to have committed fraud.

The official ideology of America's elite remains one of meritocracy, just as our political leadership pretends to be populist. But that won't last. Soon enough, our society will rediscover the importance of good breeding, and the vulgarity of talented upstarts.

For years, opinion leaders have told us that it's all about family values. And it is -- but it will take a while before most people realize that they meant the value of coming from the right family.

Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress said he watched a crowd stab one young man, then force a tire filled with gasoline around his neck and burn him alive. Sani said he saw three other bodies elsewhere in the city.

Alsa Hassan, founder of another human rights group, Alsa Care, said he saw a commuter being dragged out of his car and beaten to death by protesters.

Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great," ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city. Others were heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin."

[G]ov. George Ryan of Illinois, whose state has a bad record of sentencing innocent people to death, declared a moratorium on executions a few years back. Now, in his final months in office, he is considering commuting the sentences of everyone on death row. His willingness to do so may have been tested last month, by televised hearings that underscored the horror of the crimes for which these inmates were sentenced. But despite the bad publicity, Governor Ryan should do the right thing, and commute all the sentences to life in prison.

Bollinger's husband Jacob, also 17 at the time of the attack, was the key witness.

He said Sims entered their mobile home, held a knife to his throat, beat him in the head and raped Jo Ana Bollinger, then twisted a pair of long johns around Jacob Bollinger's throat until he lost consciousness. The baby was unhurt.

Illinois has been at the center of the death penalty debate since it was revealed, through DNA evidence, that 13 of the people sent to its death row since capital punishment was restored in 1977 had been wrongly convicted. That's more than the 12 people who were actually executed. The co-chairman of a blue-ribbon commission appointed to study the system noted that it was unlikely that any doctor "could get it wrong over 50 percent of the time and still stay in business." In one case, a convicted murderer who had spent 16 years on death row was exonerated just two days before his scheduled execution.

Suppose there's a population that believes, by force of religious conviction and / or brainwashing, leavened with a capacity for intergenerational hatred, that they are here on this earth to eliminate another people, or die trying.

They raise their children on this thought venom, and after these children grow up, their brains are found to be wired differently, and furthermore, they start to act out this genocidal intent in a relentless fashion, unswayed by the kindness and 'turn the other cheek' generosity of their intended victims.

While not all within the aggressor population are actors in this violence, the non-participant majority provide moral and material support to the participants, with very, very few exceptions.

These are the Germans of WW2.

These are the Palestinians of the 21st century.

Question:

What is the correct response on the part of the target population?

First, it's about providing political cover. In the face of budget deficits as far as the eye can see, the administration -- determined to expand, not reconsider the program of tax cuts it initially justified with projections of huge surpluses -- must make a show of cutting spending. Yet what can it cut? The great bulk of public spending is either for essential services like defense and the justice system, or for middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare that the administration doesn't dare attack openly.

If these elements (extended unemployment benefits and aid to the states) don't add up to a large enough sum -- I agree with Mr. Madrick that $100 billion over the next year is a good target -- why not have another rebate, this time going to everyone who pays payroll taxes?

The federal civil service, with its careful protection of workers from political pressure, was created specifically to bring the spoils system to an end; but now the administration has found a way around those constraints.

We don't have to speculate about what will follow, because Jeb Bush has already blazed the trail. Florida's governor has been an aggressive privatizer, and as The Miami Herald put it after a careful study of state records, "his bold experiment has been a success ? at least for him and the Republican Party, records show. The policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given him, other Republican politicians and the Florida G.O.P. millions of dollars in campaign donations."

What's interesting about this network of contractors isn't just the way that big contributions are linked to big contracts; it's the end of the traditional practice in which businesses hedge their bets by giving to both parties. The big winners in Mr. Bush's Florida are companies that give little or nothing to Democrats. Strange, isn't it? It's as if firms seeking business with the state of Florida are subject to a loyalty test.

Iraq shoots down American plane, captures pilot

Democrats call on Bush to seek UN help

Our foreign policy, based on an openly proclaimed intention to dominate the world, is a recipe for getting our country in some of the worst trouble it's ever been in.

State Department warns Catholic Bishops on sex abuse scandal

Gov't says new rules may provoke new cases

As a nephrologist who has seen too many patients on dialysis die waiting for a kidney, I agree with Nicholas D. Kristof that the time has come to allow financial incentives for organ donation. The cost of maintaining altruism, already a shaky concept, is excessively high.

Mr. Kristof quotes Francis Delmonico, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, who suggests "a reimbursement of funeral expense, for consent to donation of that family member's organs and tissues."

The distinction between a cash payment and covering funeral costs is simple hypocrisy.

The fairest way to carry out an incentive plan for organ donation is through the tax code. A cadaver donation should result in suspension of the estate tax and the final year of income tax. A live donation should be rewarded by a lifetime income tax exemption.

The old saw that paid organ donation exploits the poor to benefit the rich would be turned upside down.
RICHARD AMERLING, M.D.
New York, Nov. 12, 2002

I’m a little confused by something I read: ?Iran’s hard-line judiciary today sentenced an outspoken reform activist to death, 8 years in jail, 74 lashes, and a 10-year ban from teaching.? So, what’s the deal here? The execution comes after the eight years in jail?

The mullahs’ justice has always confused me.

In negotiations this week, Republicans tried to persuade the Democrats to include a vote on Miguel Estrada, a lawyer who has argued many cases before the Supreme Court and who has been nominated for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, widely regarded as second in importance only to the Supreme Court. Republicans are eager to have Mr. Estrada in place on the appeals court as soon as possible to make him a more credible candidate for the Supreme Court.

Democrats had hoped to block Mr. Estrada's confirmation but now concede he should be easily confirmed next year after Mr. Bush renominates him.

Committee Democrats had asserted that Mr. Estrada is a conservative ideologue and demanded that the White House turn over to the committee his internal opinions when Mr. Estrada was an assistant solicitor general in the Justice Department.

The White House refused to provide the documents, and the ensuing dispute allowed Democrats to delay scheduling a vote. But a senior White House official said this week that the issue was now moot with Republican control of the Senate.

* Saudi customs list of contraband material includes -- in addition to drugs, liquor, pornographic material and the like --anything in the shape of the cross, even if only in decorative formations, as well as any Christian books, pictures, or publications.

* A Greek young man who went to Saudi Arabia for business was harassed at Jeddah airport by the customs official who pulled off a cross pendant he wore about his neck and threw it violently in the waste basket.

* A European woman married to a Palestinian Muslim carried in her luggage an icon of the Holy Virgin that had been given to her as a child by her grandmother. Her luggage was searched, the icon confiscated and thrown into the waste basket.

* A Christian who was walking in the street in Jeddah was stopped by the Mutawa’ah [the Muslim Religious Police] and asked why he was not at the mosque for afternoon prayers. Upon replying that he was Christian, the Mutawi’ [policeman] cried out 'A’udhu Billah' [I seek Allah's protection!] and spat on the Christian's face.

* On a television programme that provides religious counseling [fatwa] a viewer asked the counseling Sheikh if he could travel to Egypt to hand an item he had in safekeeping over to a Christian friend's family. The Sheikh reprimanded the viewer for having a Christian friend in the first place ? Muslims were not permitted to take Christian friends. He then went on to advise the viewer to keep the item in question for himself, since all possessions of kuffaar [non-believers] were the rightful property of Muslims.

* The same Sheikh was asked for advice by a Saudi student who was leaving to the U.S to study, and feared for his virtue. The Sheikh advised him to marry an American as soon as he arrived to the U.S., on condition that he would not have any babies by that 'wife,' then divorce her once his scholarship was over and he was ready to head back home.

* Anyone found in possession of a Bible or known to have met with others in Christian prayer meetings is arrested, questioned, and deported.

Romania and Poland will bring a "pro-American critical mass" to NATO, said Mircea Geoana, Romania's foreign minister in an interview. Indeed, whenever Mr. Geoana's French diplomatic counterparts worry about Romania's enthusiasm for the United States, he said he tells them that "after Romania enjoys several decades of prosperity like France, then we will have the luxury of taking the U.S. for granted."

Is this because the Vatican is too pro-Israel, or because of the troops it stations in Saudi Arabia?

[F]or those of us who think the nation has taken a disastrous wrong turn these past two years, Tuesday's election changed everything and nothing.

Clearly, we're going to have an extended sojourn in the political wilderness. Even criticizing the Bush administration's policies will become far more difficult. It will be hard even to find out what it's up to; the most secretive administration in the nation's history will now be even less forthcoming. And anyone who criticizes the administration, even on purely domestic issues, will be accused of lacking patriotism. After all, that strategy worked even against Senator Max Cleland, a genuine war hero who lost three limbs in his country's service.

What hasn't changed is the fundamental wrongness of this administration's direction. Too many pundits, confusing politics with policy ? or engaging in sheer power worship ? imagine that a party that wins a battle must be doing something right. But it ain't necessarily so. Political victory doesn't make a bad policy good; it doesn't make a lie the truth.

But what do we do about it?

Some of my friends are in despair. They fear that by the time the political pendulum swings, the damage will be irreparable. A ballooning federal debt, they say, will have made it impossible to deal with the needs of an aging population. Years of unchecked crony capitalism will have destroyed faith in our financial markets. Unilateralist foreign policy will have left us without real allies. And most important of all, environmental neglect will have gone past the point of no return.

They may be right. But we have to behave as if they aren't, and try to turn American politics around.

It won't be easy. There are essentially no moderates left in the Republican Party, so change will have to come from the Democrats. And they are deep in a hole.

It's not just Sept. 11. As Jonathan Chait points out in The New Republic, the Republicans also have a huge structural advantage. They can spend far more money getting their message out; when it comes to free publicity, some of the major broadcast media are simply biased in favor of the Republicans, while the rest tend to blur differences between the parties.

But that's the way it is. Democrats should complain as loudly about the real conservative bias of the media as the Republicans complain about its entirely mythical liberal bias; that will help them get their substantive message across. But first they have to have a message.

Since the 2000 election, and especially since Sept. 11, much of the Democratic leadership has argued that the party must play it safe ? don't criticize the Bush administration too much, don't propose anything drastic that will offend corporations and the wealthy. What we should have realized, and what Tuesday's election disaster confirms, is that this plays right into Republican advantages. Talk radio and Fox News let the hard right get its message out to its supporters, while those who oppose the juggernaut stay home because they don't get the sense that the Democrats offer a real alternative.

To have a chance of breaking through the wall of media blur and distraction, the Democrats have to get the public's attention ? which means they have to stand for something.

It's obvious what the Democrats should stand for: Above all, they should be the defenders of ordinary Americans against the power of our burgeoning plutocracy. That means hammering the Republicans as they back off on corporate reform ? which they will. It means defending the environment against the administration's sly, behind-the-scenes program of dismantling regulation.

And it means doing what the party has refused to do: coming out forthrightly against tax cuts for corporations and the rich ? both the cuts passed last year and those yet to come. In the next few months the Bush administration will once again demand tax cuts that benefit a tiny elite, in the name of economic stimulus. The Democrats mustn't fall for this line again; they must insist that the way to stimulate the economy is to put money in the hands of people who need it.

If the Democratic Party takes a clear stand for the middle class and against the plutocracy, it may still lose. But if it doesn't stand for anything, it ? and the country ? will surely lose.

Whatever eventually happens in Louisiana, the Democrats have lost control of the Senate. The nation will return almost immediately to the Republican domination of the executive, legislative and judicial branches that existed before Vermont's Jim Jeffords turned independent last year. Now the Democratic voters who chose not to show up Tuesday are going to find out what their decision meant, in a country ruled by President Bush, Trent Lott and Tom DeLay. From drilling in Alaska to regressive taxation to unilateral war, the agenda of the corporate and religious right will shape our future. [emphasis added]

But homeowners will ultimately be affected as well by the growing number of people priced out of hot housing areas. With fewer potential buyers entering the market at the bottom, the sharp run-up in home values may be nearing an end, not only here in Boston but also in New York, Denver, Minneapolis, nearly every large city in California, and other places where prices have greatly outstripped incomes.