[News With Views] Did you ever stop to realize that wanting to achieve the American Dream — a chicken in every pot and two cars in your garage — is "the problem"? Yep! You and your selfish dream are destroying this country. I kid you not.
The article "The problem with America’s high homeownership rate" by Felix Salmon [i] spells it out loud and clear. It begins by telling us that our decades-long love affair with homeownership is not only holding back the economy, but also "hobbling the Federal Reserve (as if their problem isn’t self-inflicted) and exacerbating a national housing crisis." Nope, sorry. The housing crisis is greatly driven by the big non-governmental organizations (NOGs) gobbling up houses to turn into rentals, for now (a story for another time). And, as in Hawaii, taking people’s property via the insurance companies (other NGOs) denying coverage for the fire damages.
Further down it says there is "a deeply inefficient distribution of where people live". As if people should not choose where they want to live, but maybe, be directed into 15-Minute Smart Cities? Oh, and also another reason to not own a home — "mortgages have become the primary means of American middle-class wealth creation". What’s wrong with that? According to Salmon, "The principal amount outstanding on a mortgage slowly declines over time, even as the value of the home (generally) goes up. The result, if everything goes according to plan, is ever-greater home equity, and therefore wealth."
Uh, isn’t this still America, where freedom, property rights, and free-market capitalism are guiding principles?
So what does Salmon see as wrong with us owning homes? First, "the 36% of households in the middle quintile who don’t own their home at all, and for whom home equity is therefore 0% of their net worth." Good grief, some people don’t want to own a home and have the responsibility of keeping it up. Yes, there are those (not in the middle quintile {unless they live in the very expensive cities}) who can’t afford to buy a home. |