"Renaissance Thinking About the Issues of Our Day"
President’s Weekly address on $5 Billion in Homeowner’s assistance welcome but uninspired.
"The housing crisis has been the single biggest drag on our recovery from the recession. It has kept millions of families in debt and unable to spend, and it has left hundreds of thousands of construction workers out of a job," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
What ticks me off about Obama’s statement is that it confirms what I read time and time again about governments’ responses to economic crisis. As is so often the case the 2008 crisis was addressed by restoring the wealth lost at the top and leaving the rest of the economy to recover on its own with the sector that took the bath.
This isn’t change and it is one of the single most government policies that causes the most suffering and injustice in our society. Furthermore, it isn’t change because really all Obama is striving to do is restore the old status quo of dynamics that got us in this mess. To me, it reveals Obama's penchant for trickle down economics and the fact that he is only addressing it now because to enhance his chances at getting re-elected - after which we can expect to be ignored again. Over $11 Trillion dollars was lost by homeowner's in 2008 ish and your telling me you just decided that some material assistance was need now? Do you honestly expect me to believe that the President of the United States just realized now that in aggregate a shift of wealth totalling over $11 Trillion dollars occured in his country some 4 years ago?!
And finally, it doesn’t address the systemic problem with concentration of wealth at the top which is the systemic problem with aggregate demand. Driving the Nation further into debt to increase the wealth of the 99% so that the 1% go from having 40% of the wealth to, say, 32% of the wealth while retaining the same absolute amount of wealth and the system set to give them more IS NOT FIXING THE PROBLEM. But it sure campaigns well and does bring some cosmetic relief to the victims – even though the next move of such a plan will be to cut more government services after he gets re-elected.
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-presses-congress-pass-aid-homeowners-110211866.html
Comments
Why uninspired?
1) Wall Street doesn’t deserve fees from cutting mortgages on newly built single-family free-standing homes at the expense of threatening any gains existing homeowners may have realized over the past years in their home values. Obama will increase the supply of single-family free-standing homes which is asinine right now. Especially when you consider that construction jobs can be generated by focusing on building multi-family condominium developments (size limits). You could even consider what the money can be used for based upon the effects to the type of housing at risk in a SMSA or some other geographic boundary. But cool it and be very careful on the new construction of any type of housing.
2) making a home more affordable doesn’t stop at lowering the mortgage obligation. Funds should also be made available to lower water, electrical, gas, heating oil, etc. bills. as well as retro-fiting all existing homes with solar. This creates construction jobs. It is also consistent with that pure line of b.s. from the fossil fuel industry "energy independence".
His proposal is just more sub par economic garbage dictated to him by special interest groups that will - once again - short change the People\99%
I had a lot more to say on the subject, but why bother, the guy is a complete loss.