Stop, now... What's that sound?

So, the DOW is going nuts, and yet things don't feel like they did back in the 90's when it first crossed the 10,000 mark. The housing market sucks rocks (at least that's the perception) and generally things "just aren't the same" as the first time around. I wondered why that was.

I am no student of the economy, so I found this post from last October fairly enlightening.

I would like to see more current (preferably light-weight and understandable) analysis, though.