Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., the Wall Street Journal’s most “free market” columnist reiterated his radical solution to the housing/mortgage market crash: “Using tax dollars to buy and demolish foreclosed, unoccupied or half-built houses in selected markets.”
According to Jenkins, central planners have figured out the best strategies of taxing the people and using the proceeds to prop up sliding home prices: “Knocking down surplus homes would be the most efficient and equitable way to spend taxpayer dollars. It can proceed experimentally. It can be turned off quickly when the need evaporates.”
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America: Bulldozing its way to prosperity since 1933.
I won’t go into the “Broken Window” arguments but go for the less theory argument of how does this help anybody?
Under this plan, the government picks foreclosed or abandoned homes and comes by and bulldozes them. What about the owners of the property be they a lender or insurance company or indvidual? I guess they just get screwed? It is not wonder this plan has very few takers.
As usual in the Government War on Poor People, the author points out that this happens regularly in poor neighborhoods but rarely happens in wealthy neighborhoods.
I have a better plan: Stop the two wars, eliminate Anti-Social Un-Security, cancel 9 out of 10 regulations and lets see if this is still an issue.
how does this help anybody?
It helps the owners and developers of the pre-existing houses that don’t get demolished. After the bulldozers have rolled through town, the “competition” will literally have been destroyed.
It’s the less-bloody equivalent of taking all of those pesky “scab” non-Union workers who might want to compete with Union members, rounding them up and exterminating or deporting them.
Call it “bulldozer protectionism.”
And like all forms of protectionism, it is a subsidy to industry insiders, and comes at the expense of anyone who wants to enter the market as a relative newcomer. In this case, this proposal is a barrier to entry that operates to the detriment of anyone who might be interested in taking advantage of the plummeting house prices and buy a bargain.
This prospective market-entrant will find that his bargain-hunting opportunities have been razed.
Is there a Bulldozer Workers Union by any chance? Can I join?
of houses and bombs – i recall the spontaneous audience applause when aliens dispatched the white house in the 1996 film,”independence day”. a resonant chord was struck.
newson:
You are metaphorically quite right, of course, as it is the federal government that should be bulldozed.
What a lovely hotel the White House would make, not to mention the House and Senate building turned into condos and apartment buildings.
Talk about a housing boom!
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