mbperrin
mbperrin's JournalThe root problem is the monetization of housing.
For centuries, even thousands of years, the purpose of a house was to provide shelter for a family group. You built it and lived in it, and passed it along to those that followed.
Then we invented home financing, where bankers make more money than builders from the same house.
Where people are told that their home is not a shelter, but a financial asset to borrow money against. The money and interest paid back suck money out of the rest of the economy.
Where people are told that they must obtain larger and more expensive housing by trading their old houses and taking out ever-larger loans. This means that bankers make multiples more than builders.
Then, when housing can't be paid for, the families are evicted, and the properties are bundled into other financial transactions, making more money for banks and financial gamblers and hedgers.
So you end up not with communities made up of family-owned, generationally-passed shelters, and people free to spend their money for real things, not interest and fees, but instead a landscape of shadow entities propelled by interest and fees, "protected" by hedges and US government guarantees to banks, while real people have no place to live, because they do not have the entry ticket.
One ticket used to be enough for generations, now each family needs many tickets during a single life to try to stay covered. Any accident, bump, or glitch, and families are out. Banks win either way, and so millions of perfectly good housing units stand empty while millions of perfectly good people are homeless.
Homes are not and never were intended to be investments nor financial tools of any kind. They keep you covered from the weather and safe from environmental intrusion. That's all.
Will no one rid Texas of this turbulent idiot?
No peoples or states could possibly deserve having Perry as their governor.
Flood? ok
Fire from heaven? dramatic
Pillar of salt? permanent
Perry? Lord Lord hear the cries of thy people!
The basic thing we must do is to begin costing the negative effects of financial decisions.
For example, a $10 million dollar road extension was built here in my county to accommodate a large energy company which said they were going to build a plant there, and they requested county taxpayers build the road. In exchange, 50 new jobs would be created.
I didn't see it as a great deal, anyway, but it really turned bad after the road was built and the company changed their mind.
They should have to pay for that new road to nowhere. They owe the taxpayers $10 million. Very simple example.
Now, a long-existing plant wants to leave a community and go overseas. Okay, but first, they must pay for the infrastructure they were using, that now will not be paid for in tax revenues. The costs of all transport to and from that plant, the educations of all the employees, the demolition and restoration of the plant area to its natural state, the expense of replacing those jobs and so on. THEIR decision made all those problems, so they should have to pay for them, in cash. It's the old, "you break it, you buy it" rule. Common sense, nothing radical, although you will hear caterwauling like unto people being boiled in oil.
As of now, they simple privatize all profits and socialize all losses.
HOW to convince the voters to not listen to all the astroturf and contrived ads about "YOU were gonna be rich some day, but not now" and "this is communism" and "this will destroy jobs", I don't know. They hold a large megaphone available on demand.
But just like a divorce where a relationship goes bad, there is a division of property, awards of support and alimony, temporary payments, custody decisions, there needs to be a settling of accounts when a business begins or ends it presence.
It's the latest stupid belief in education: similar to "if you test it, they will learn."
Yeah, "if you build it, they will come" worked in a movie, but in reality, ghost towns, abandoned malls, dead factories and many other built things are dead and empty still.
Apparently childhood development hasn't been taught in some years or is not required among management in education. These adult tactics will only convince small kids that they are stupid and worthless.
Even at the high school level, some kids are still concrete thinkers - we KNOW that most of them will get abstract, critical thought by age 25, but that's some distance off, isn't it?
Doing the same thing in Texas - giving end of course exams in April, leaving kids (and me) to wonder: so why do we go to school in May and June? We did what you wanted and took your END OF COURSE exam.
Oh, and of course, there is NO "average" person.
Compare a 61 year old near-retiree (me) with perfect cholesterol, 120/80 blood pressure, great sodium and all other counts, resting heart rate 54, never been in a hospital in my life except to be born, have my tonsils, appendix, and all the rest, except for a few teeth.
Now take one of my high school classmates - champion swimmer then, now confined to a wheelchair after having amputation from the shoulder down to control a horrible cancer and a stroke post-operation which left her paralyzed on her right side (yes, the one that was not removed).
No speech, no control over elimination at all, no ability to write, 24 hour care by paid attendants, because her husband died last year, and their only child died at 16 in a car wreck without issue. Now give us both the "average" amount required.
OR
48 people in a room who make zero dollars a year, the poorest of the poor. Bill Gates walks in, now we are all billionaires on average. Truth is, there's just one rich guy in the room, the rest still have nothing.
"Average" is one of the mean statistics.
Cat food is $8 a pound. (A dollar for a 2 ounce can)
What they are really eating in our part of the country is beans and bread.
I own a small apartment complex where nearly all our tenants are 75+ years old. All worked their entire lives, and several are still working, because they draw a whole $947 a month from Social Security. After they pay our rent, which includes their electric and water bills, they have less than $350 to buy food, pay their medications, new socks if they need them for the whole month.
Forget owning a vehicle - no way with insurance and gasoline, even if paid for.
Most others live with their family, because most other rents are insanely high - 1 bedroom apartments are routinely $800+ with no utilities, with a requirement for first month, last month, and deposit to move in.
Just ordinary modest working people. Now why would anyone want to punish them for simply working their entire lives and doing the best they could?
Because you know, and I know, that Social Security has NO impact whatsoever on the deficit or debt, period. So these cuts, and that's what they are, are just for meanness. They are to mollycoddle a group of mean old bastards who hate and hate and yet somehow remain in office (Satan keeps his promises, apparently, although they always forget to ask for not being as ugly outside as they are on the inside.)
Mean people suck.
If the chained CPI actually goes into effect, I will act accordingly.
Google is your friend. Here's the take from Boston College.
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/96498Their analysis is that it cannot be viewed as anything other than a cut in benefits, and especially for the oldest and the poorest.
All a chained CPI does is say that people will buy cheaper and cheaper stuff as they get poorer and poorer, so instead of giving them money to buy the old stuff, we'll just give them enough to buy the cheaper and cheaper stuff.
Two problems: poorest don't have the ability to shift as readily: no transportation out of their immediate area to find these bargains, and no Internet access to order it online. Same for the oldest of the old - lack of mobility due to age, and again, lack of Internet access.
So no, the poor will not be lifted above the poverty line - the line will be moved so that they no longer are "officially" poor. This is what happened when we changed the definition of unemployed and cut the unemployment rate in half - magically. Trouble is, "discouraged" workers still don't have a job or money (their benefits have run out).
It's like changing the F on your report card to a B - hey, ma! Look! Happy for a moment, but the transcript still has the F, and you ain't going to college. How happy will ma be then?
I'm 61, and I wish people would just be honest about people my age and older - they hate us and would like to take us the gas chamber, but that conjures up negative images, so they will simply starve us in our houses and prevent us from getting decent medical care - same result.
Chained CPI is smoke and mirrors. Smoke gets in your eyes. When it gets in your lungs, it kills you.
Oh, and YES, I do hold a degree in economics. Thanks for asking!
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Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 7,672
