On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:40:59 -0400, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> At 05:00 AM 9/30/2008, Dmytri Kleiner wrote:
>>Bailout people with effective social housing and effective social
>>benefits. Create an society where people do not require life-long
>>wage-slavery to pay life-long debt for the privilege of having a place to
> live.
>
> newsflash: you have to spend the rest of your life paying *someone* for
> the privilege of a place to live.
And this is a good thing you support?
> i've read this line elsewhere and it's
> really fucking annoying.
As annoying as people prefacing banal questing begging with "newsflash?"
>Some people were hoping to buy houses like my
> step-grandfather did: lived in it for many years and spent the last
decade
> of his life with no mortgage. others are hoping that, if they have
nothing
> else to give their kids, it will be a mostly paid off house with a
> comparably low mortgage 25 years from now.
Hope springs eternal.
Private home ownership in ever expanding satellite suburbs is neither socially, economically nor environmentally desirable, and is a practice that has been far over-subsidized already.
> On that income, even the one bedroom is 4 x the yearly income, which is
> higher than the recommended income-debt ratio. Getting in over your head
> is easy to do, and you don't have to be greedy.
What is driving location rents to that level in the first place? Could it be a mix of speculation fueled by unsustainable money supply levels and development subsidies?
Where do you think all that funny money will flow through to? Let me give you a hint: location rents.
The answer is not to help those that have gotten-in in-time for the big cash grab //afford// the artificially high location rents, but rather to create rational and sustainable forms of housing.
Spare me you step-grandfather's sob story, how many people lack adequate housing or pay an unreasonable portion of their earnings for housing in your country? If we're throwing trillions around, the only solution I would support is one that addresses this general, fundamental, issue.
This whole discussions is of course moot, because in reality neither you step-grandfather nor sustainable housing projects will get the cash, this crisis, like all economic crisis, will simply lead to a greater concentration of wealth. You can take that to the bank.
-- Dmytri Kleiner editing text files since 1981
http://www.telekommunisten.net