Grey Matters

The collapse of the housing market was inevitable and no surprise to those of us who were paying attention. It has its seeds in government intervention in the free market (as do most financial crises).

In the Clinton years, government eager beavers discovered that people who could not afford homes could not get home loans.  This, they suspected, was the result of discrimination as many of the people who could not get loans were other than white in complexion. Now, the fact is, some folks are simply not credit-worthy and have a history which proves it. Others are simply not able to make the payments due to their income. 

Mortgage lenders have been tuning their formulae for a long time and know a bad risk when they see one. Nonetheless, with talk of discrimination charges in the offing, they had little choice. They were required by the feds to count as “income” (for purposes of getting a home loan) welfare payments and unemployment income. That’s right. That’s right, the egalitarians among us thought it wasn’t fair that unemployed people couldn’t get mortgage loans. 

And so it was that mortgage lenders were “encouraged” to make loans available to people who could not afford them and to those who were poor credit risks. The mechanisms used included interest-only loans and other mechanisms to get the early payments down in size, but which required paying larger payments — sometimes including a balloon payment — later.

This had the desired effect of getting people into homes but it was inevitable that many of these loans would become delinquent at some point in time.

Of course, housing was booming for a while as millions of families that could not previously afford homes suddenly were in the market. But when you lend money to people who cannot afford to pay it back, the result was as predictable as it was inevitable. 

The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Bill Clinton’s chickens coming home to roost. But you can bet the Democrats are going to blame this on Bush’s free-wheeling economic policies or some such and demand tighter regulation of the housing market — though it was federal interference in the market which set it upon its disastrous path in the first place.

Socialism is a morally bankrupt philosophy. Its foundation is envy and its primary tool is theft — taking money from people who earn it and giving it to those who did not.

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I have no problem with socialism that is mutually agreed upon. If a group of people decide to live in a communal setting, sharing everything and holding all their possessions in common, sharing all they earn and produce, I have no problem with that. It’s a particularly hard situation to make work satisfactorily, as evidenced by the lack of communes today, despite many of them being founded by collectivists in the 1960s. But I think folks should be able to give it a try, if they want. 

No, the socialism I detest is the involuntary socialism beloved of governments — socialism at the point of a gun. The only way to make socialism “work” is to force participation by unwilling persons. This is how socialist governments all over the world operate.

Communists in particular believe in the principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” I maintain that there is nothing fair or moral about robbing one person to pay another, no matter how “needy” the latter may be. Theft is theft and theft is wrong. 

Socialsts believe, apparently, that theft is OK as long as it’s been voted on — like three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. 

Socialism says that some people must sacrifice so that others may benefit. This is the same theory behind throwing a virgin into the volcano or cutting the still-beating heart from someone’s chest to appease the Gods. Some people benefit, some have to pay. Voting on and institutionalizing the process does not make it any less wrong. 

Now, if the leaders would care to ask for virgin volunteers to jump into the volcano or ask that young lads come forth and volunteer to have their hearts cut out with a stone knife, and volunteers do these things willingly, I have no problem with that. Many people are, by nature, altruistic and would make those sacrifices for the benefit of others, but the decision must be personal, and not up to the government.

“But what about the poor people,” you might ask. Well, there’d be a lot fewer poor people if government wasn’t sucking up 40-50% of everything we Americans produce. And poor people will always be cared for by not-poor people. Even during the Great Depression, people didn’t starve to death. We had soup kitchens and private philanthropy to help people get by. 

But socialists aren’t happy with getting by. They want what others have; they are driven by envy. They view as “unfair” any system in which some have more than others. For them, it’s not about poor people, it’s about inequality. So they steal from those that have to give to those that have not. Simple as that.

Socialism is a morally bankrupt philosophy.

It’s simple economics: if you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. Make something more affordable through subsidies and more people will buy into it. Government loves to subsidize things to encourage us citizens to act in certain ways. Government gives (or has given) tax credits — free money — to people preserving historic buildings, people who install solar water heaters, people who buy energy-efficient homes or cars and so on. As a result of subsidies, we have more historic buildings being preserved, more solar water heaters and more energy efficient homes and vehicles. If government wants to encourage certain socially desirable behaviors, throwing money around is a proven technique. 

Apparently, there must have been a shortage of out-of-wedlock births, so government has been subsidizing these for decades.  As a “head of household” the single mother is eligible for subsidies for food, housing and a variety of things designed to make it easier to be a single mother.

Naturally, there has been a vast increase in the number of unmarried women (often minor children) having babies. This subsidy program has been a huge success, whether you measure success in the raw number of single mothers, the increased number of families living below the poverty level or the huge increase in the number of kids growing up fatherless, who are more likely than kids from two-parent households to end up in jail.

Curiously, despite what I perceive to be a surplus — a glut really — of single mothers, the subsidies of single motherhood go on. Apparently, whatever goals our government had when it began subsidizing single motherhood have not yet been reached. I’m not too worried though. I’m sure government knows what it’s doing.

Today’s coverage of the Republican National Convention (as reported by CBS) Consisted of George W. Bush on a huge TV screen providing all the usual blather about what a great president John McCain will make. This was followed by more coverage of the scandals surrounding Sarah Palin.

The Republicans did have some good talking points though, saying that Palin’s executive experience as mayor then governor trumps Obama’s years as merely a legislator, with no executive experience. With an 80% approval rating, Palin has the highest approval rating of any current state governor so she must be doing something right, at least for the people of Alaska.

Of course, if we’re to judge fitness for office by executive experience, Palin is probably more qualified than McCain to be president. (Though the Republican talking points didn’t seem to mention this.)

Actor and former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson then warmed up the crowd with more blather about the McCain/Palin ticket. They’re both mavericks, he said, willing to take on the political establishment.

But the star of the show tonight was Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman. That’s right, a Democrat addressed the RNC. I’ don’t know if that has ever happened before. In any case, putting country before party, Lieberman talked up the McCain/Palin ticket and asked independents and Democrats to vote for the Republican presidential ticket this fall.

Now, Lieberman was rumored to be considered for the McCain VP slot himself at one point. It would have been a very McCain-like choice. Many Republicans consider McCain to be a RINO (Republican In Name Only) inasmuch as he seems to act and vote like a Democrat so often. As Senators from Arizona go, he’s no Barry Goldwater. So choosing a Democrat for VP certainly would have been right up McCain’s alley, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, Sarah Palin happened. Good thing too, as many Republicans could not justify voting for McCain. Now they can. There’s going to be an actual Republican on the ticket. 

I’ve got to give McCain credit for getting a sitting U.S. Senator of the opposition party to endorse him over his own Democrat ticket.

This posting was to have been about the first day of the Republican National Convention but there were a few snags. First, the everyone felt it would be unseemly to carry on convention activities as planned with Hurricane Gustav threatening the gulf coast, so actual convention activity was limited to just 2 1/2 hours of routine business and nothing much happened. Apparently, the rest of the country is now required to walk on eggshells when New Orleans is threatened by hurricanes. 

As a result, the convention coverage I recorded on CBS turned out to be mostly Gustav and New Orleans related. What little there was concerning the Republican McCain and his VP nominee-to-be, Sarah Palin, concerned itself with Palin’s pregnant, unmarried 17-year old daughter.

Attitudes towards the pregnancy were mixed with some teenager saying, “If she can’t control her daughter, how is she going to control the nation” or some such while the opposite view was: She’s a fine example because she didn’t have an abortion and hide it but instead is having the baby and will raise it, plus marry the baby’s father.

Barack Obama, unlike liberal bloggers, had the good sense to say that the pregnancy is none of our business — that family is off limits.

I also learned that six hospital patients died while being evacuated from Gustav’s path. 

And that wraps it up for today’s RNC coverage.