>There is a lot of profit-motive speculation in the housing market among
>"home owners," regardless of your step-grandfathers moral standing, this is
>just as much money-for-nothing greed that that wich drives the money
>lenders.
"Speculation" by home owner-occupiers isn't the problem. As an owner-occupier you can't really benefit from inflated house prices anyhow. The only way you can capitalise the capital gain is by selling the house. But since you either have to buy another one (at the inflated price) or rent (at inflated rents), there is only a phantom benefit.
Home owner-occupiers consume housing in other words, they aren't capitalists.
The real problem is speculators who buy more housing than they need for use, in the expectation of inflation of house prices. These speculators need to be crushed, by flooding the market with affordable rental housing (to depress the market price of rental housing) and houses for sale.
I know that this was precisely government policy here in Australia in the post WW2 years, up until the 70's. Cheap government rental housing was created on a large scale in every state and territory. It was actually part of a strategy to encourage home ownership, oddly enough. The idea was to make for profit rental housing unprofitable, which it did. Working class people could then either purchase their house at low interest rates or purchase elsewhere. Because cheap government housing was widely available, speculation in house prices was made quite marginal, house price inflation was suppressed by concerted government action.
It helped to keep labour costs down, it also was intended to counter any boshevik notions that the working class had nothing to lose but its chains. It gave workers something to lose. I would have to admit, it was relatively effective in many ways.
These days of course, the workers all want to own "investment" houses as well. This is the phenomenon that must be crushed. Not because we are offended by the notion of workers being property capitalists, but simply because it is unsustainable and absurd to have mass profiteering in housing. Unsustainable in the sense that its like pyramid selling, only the very early entrants to the game can profit and the rest must be left high and dry.
It is obvious. That's why it is so amazing that large professional banking corporations could have been so blind and stupid as to invest their money in financing such a ridiculous pyramid scheme. really, they are idiots, it would be extremely dangerous to assist such incompetents to stay in the business of banking, they deserve to go broke and for the sake of capitalist society they need to be allowed to go broke and find an alternative way of making a living where they might be qualified.
But owner-occupiers, as such, are not the problem, never have been. You are being irrational and emotional to suggest such a thing. Bot a proper socialist at all.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell tas