[lbo-talk] Gallup on bailout

[pward at peterhartward.com]

I agree that our obsession with home ownership is based on superstition; however, have you rented something lately?! Personally, I'd rather get kicked in the balls and have my uninsured car stoled (assuming I owned one) than go through that process again (I just signed on a place)--at least that's the situation here in NYC. Basically, your lease obliges you to pay rent for the term of the lease even if you get evicted, until, at the caprice of the owner, it gets re-rented--ie, it's a contract guarantying the owner  the sum of term rent no matter what. And in most cases, you have to pay a fee based on 12% of your annual rent to a broker just to get to the lease-signing stage. Increasing, its hard to see what ethical progress we've made (and I'm talking about lefty-enlightened NY here). 

On Wed, 8 Oct 2008 21:09:32 +0100
"Lenin's Tomb" <leninstombblog at googlemail.com> wrote:

 'We' got screwed, first as workers, then as consumers,
then as debtors. 

But look on the bright side. "We" are no longer enslaved, 
mentally and otherwise, by a mortgage and the insane 
fetish of "home" ownership.