Are there any long term good things that will come of the current economic unpleasantness? Is this suffering for naught, or will something be learned, a wrong course corrected?
Perhaps. The Congress seems to be making the point quite clearly that one does not want the United States as a business partner. There is a real dark and twisted side to being in league with a government to run a business. My industry knew this and is teaching a hard lesson to the rest of the country as one company after another scrambles to return government "help" that came last fall.
The roots of this problem are many but the seeds were planted decades ago in various forms of government intervention in the economy. The government decided that it was important for people to be homeowners. This certainly sounds good and for years I thought it made sense. The United States created government agencies to either offer homes loans or guarantee them so that private businesses would extend loans to those they would have otherwise rejected, or charged a premium rate.
I do not believe anymore that home ownership has much to do with living a good life. Certainly a very smug comment from a homeowner. I realize millions of non-homeowners would be glad to trade places with me. While it is certainly very pleasing there are many other possession that can bring equal satisfaction, though material possessions have their limits. I realize in hindsight that I own my home in part because the United States encouraged me to. Left to my own devices I might have chosen a different way to spend my money.
You don't find the American dream in the signing of mortgage papers. You find it most clearly in the heart of a teenager and that true independence they long for as no one else does. They cry out to make their own decisions, decide their future for themselves, not be told what to do, and follow their own desires. This pure independence gets watered down as you get older but in the teenager it is a God-given rage against intervention in ones life by others. Encouragement or gentle pressure to make a particular decision can be as bad as forcing one.
Owning a home is great, but so is owning a rare piece of art, a silver plated hookah, a first edition of Les Miserables, a 1965 Mustang, or a new John Deere combine.
Shouldn't it be people who decide what is important to them? Why use tax dollars to favor one industry over another, whether it's home builders, colleges or windmill makers? What did we get from decades of pro home-ownership policies? What happened when government tax policy diverted dollars from what people might have pursued on their own? What businesses were not started and what books were not written?
When government picks the winners and losers in economic competition, it is rarely correct. It is swayed by the moment. It has no soul, no passion, no creativity. It doesn't know what is best. It only knows how to survive. Which explains why it is usually at its best when under actual physical attack, wartime. Only then, when its survival is threatened, does it come closest to making decisions clearly and in the best interests of all.
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