Letters to the Editor
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The Truth Will Out
Saying all people should be some sort of Huxleyian plug-in for the whims of commerce is a curious sort of polemic. And I'm ruefully glad to hear one of the Mostafa Monds out there finally come forward. This also reminds me a bit of Swift's suggestion during the Potato Famine that English butcher shops start carrying Irish babies...or Nazi Ag Minister's Darre's supposed comment that once the UK is taken, all non-Nordic English males be sterilized. Obviously cruel humor, fanaticism, or slander give birth to such remarks, but then comes the wind to bear them aloft. There's a lot to learn just by watching how far up so-called "far-fetched" ideas rise.
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Psychiatric care is even more economically harmful...
In the years between 2000 (graduation) and today, I moved, on average, once a year. I did attempt home ownership at some point (a condo), but then I lost my job and could only find another one very far away. I sold (made money, mind you; but still...) Some of those moves were interstate (I have by now lived in the Midwest, the East Coast, the South, and the West Coast, and spent considerable amounts of time at points in between). All of them were necessary and dictated by economic considerations, and I do not regret any of them; but by now, I do not know where "home" is. My friends are scattered all over the country. My parents live 1500 miles away, and my other relatives live 1000 miles away in a different direction. And every time I go on a date, I start thinking geographical thoughts (what if the relationship gets serious and then I have to move again?)
People are not as movable as goods and money. Economists tend to forget that.
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Stuck in the middle
I understand the attraction of renting and buying, and the need (and sometimes it is a need) to move.
I was born and raised in Detroit. After graduating from college (and working fulltime during it), I had almost no job prospects in Michigan, a state that has had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, off and on, for about three decades. I have watched my family and friends in Detroit go through round after round of lay-offs, stay unemployed for years, lose their homes to foreclosure (and not because of crazy mortgage terms, but because of a lack of income).
And still, they refuse to move. Other U.S. cities might be hiring in any and every field in which my friends cannot find work in Michigan, but they will not move. This is one case in which I agree with my dear Polish grandparents, who would LOVE to have more family nearby but say, "You go to where the jobs are. You have to work." Period.
So I moved to Chicago and bought a condo. And I didn't feel it was all it was cracked up to be. There I sat, in my condo with my mortgage, and that was that. Being solely responsible for a mortgage is stressful in a way I don't particularly enjoy. There's absolutely no net; if something happens to me, if I'm unemployed for more than a few months, I lose the house. To be honest, though, I don't truly own my house. Most of us don't. The bank does.
I had owned my condo for six months when my dream job found me - and happened to be in San Francisco. I was amazed at how many times I heard, "Well, you obviously can't take the job; you just bought a condo." I don't want to be a person tied to her house. I'm human, I can move - the house can't. I rented it quickly and moved, and am now simultaneously a landlord and renter. And money is a tad tight, but it's fine.
Now I'm in a city that is so expensive that there is no dream of homeownership. It is, in reality and not only in a theoretical conversation, something only the rich can afford. I have yet to meet anyone in San Francisco who believes that property ownership is a RIGHT, not just a PRIVILEGE. So, I hesitate to make too great a case against homeownership, lest more cities end up like this one, where the only way you're getting a solid downpayment together is the slim-to-none chance of a good IPO.
All this is a short way of saying: Sometimes it's necessary to move, and we should. Sometimes it's not necessary to move, and we just want to, and we should, homeownership or not.
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A home is far more than an investment.
"I'd rather watch someone else's house depreciate in value. If home prices fall 5% in a year, that means that a whole year's mortgage payments just went down the toilet."
If you care only about housing prices,i.e., profits, then that sentiment might make sense. However, those mortgage payments mean far more than just profits or loss. They represent the means of living one's life for a year in a place one loves. They represent a year of enriching one's life in a home of one's own, that grows with you and either changes with you or of staying the same but getting better and better. A year of becoming a deeper part of one's community, of finding meaning in things other than profits or ever-changing external stimulation. For myself, it also represents a year of seeing the wildlife in my backyard have babies and watching those babies grow up, and of watching my garden grow, sleep, and be reborn, and the anticipation of seeing happen again.
The value of a home goes far beyond money.
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So you want an RV?
Well to each their own I guess. I thought in the modern world, technology would bring the work to us instead of forcing us to live in some dreary Marxist migratory labor hell. But I if you have to pick blueberries on the People's First October Farming Collective #57 you probably don't earn enough filthy lucre to afford a home anyway. And the State will provide if you can't, citizen.
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It is odd
It is odd that this article subverts human needs and interests to those of the abstract economy. I thought the economy existed to serve humanity, not the other way around....