Home

It is a somewhat less than noble quality in our nation these days, that wealthy people have Hedge Funds to improve their investment portfolio. What could possibly go wrong? Among those investments in heged funds, managed for a healthy share of the profits, is housing. I suppose the old way wasn't working out for the few dozen billionaire families. 

My parents bought their first house in 1956. It was a big 2-story house with a wrap-around front porch and a large garden area in back, along with pear and apple trees. It was  purchased on the GI Bill for maybe $25,000. It needed a lot of work which took place throughout my grade school and high school years. My dad was a Teamster, driving Cement truck for Canby Readymix when they bought it.My mom was a housewife. After a few years the local Ambulance service needed a new owner. My parents purchased it out of civic concern, though given the time I doubt my mom had much to say. When my dad was working we had a call list of fire, police, and local ministers who trained for first-aid. My mom answered the phone, called the on-call driver and aid-man, and ran the one-person billing department. Those post-war years were pretty good for the economy. Women and racial minorities were not given much attention but there were possibilities on the horizon, which would be partially realized by the end of the 1970s. My parents went on to own a house in Chahelis Washington in the 70s, after they sold the ambulance service. They then purchased a house in Newburg, later in Salem. They profitted from all of those houses, and the people who bought them got a decent price with a GI bill assumable mortgage. Housing, in those days was a big part of family wealth accumulation. 

Ronald Reagan brought an end to that. Billionaires, it seems, were not benefitting as much as  they felt was their due. The Republikkkon party, since Richard Nixon's first term, had been allowing moneyed interests to create tax-free political advocacy organizations that had been sketched out in a document written by a not-yet Supreme Court Justice named Louis Powell. Organizations,  unknown to most of us were in the position to appoint Supreme Court Justices willing to accept large 'gifts' from billionaires who would expect to have business before the court. Today that could be as much as half a billion dollars to Justice Clarence Thomas alone. Add to that, the $10million yearly salary for Chief Justice Robert's wife, who is a headhunter for white-shoe law firms, also doing business with the Supreme Court, and somewhat less grandiose amounts to Justice Kavenaugh, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch. We now know what could possibly happen, it wasn't good. The largesse of billionaire influencers did not stop with conservatives on the Supreme Court. Once the Court ruled on Buckley v Valejo and Citizen's United, the door was opened for billionaires to create dark-money groups to favor Republikkkon candidates. This money went one way, to one party, and has resulted in the most corrupt presidency in this nation's history, with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson. The corruption has continued to grow to the extent that congress quakes in their boots at the thought of placing Constitutional conditions on their presidents, power. 

These days may be heading for a correction. There's much that needs correction so I won't list the dozens of Constitutional sleights-of-hand, we will need to correct, or the long time- frame needed to get us back to the Constitutional Republic we had when Reagan became president. But one issue must be high on the list of Congressional changes to come....housing. in the time from Reagan to present, low Income housing has not been built at a sustainable rate. Rents have gone up by 32%, maybe more since the lag in statistics has increased thanks to the corrupt presidency we are stuck with. I'm pretty sure that it's increased more dramatically since we invaded Iran and trade goods are now blocked from entering the Straits of Hormuz. And then there are the tariffs, which are not yet ended. Adding even more to a burden that drives military veterans, families, and the people more normally found in homeless encampments. I believe we need corrective legislation to be passed to build, and maintain low-cost family housing. The people who need to pay for this legislation, since the current president is not finished aggrandizing himself at taxpayer expense, is those billionaires who had no problem using their wealth to gain greater wealth by bribing legislators and Supreme Court justices. The very people who never expressed concern for the displays of cruelty and fascism on display daily from this corrupt criminal enterprise.

Studies show that building housing is cheaper in high-population areas. It makes sense. Multi-family housing is a good example. It's cheaper to build dozens of apartments in a single building than that proverbial home with the white picket-fence. Not only could housing stock be built cheaper, it can also be built using passive and active solar technology. Solar panels on the roofs and parking lots, active solar hot-water panels, better insulation. These new apartments can be built near mass-transit centers, making transportation cheaper and lowering the carbon footprint of these structures. Yes, I do know that there are people scoffing at the thought of global warming, but they are the same people and businesses who have paid podcast influencers in muscle shirts to tell those too stupid to know that climate change is real, that it is a hoax. In addition, there are existing buildings no longer in use. In the old Walmart days, they were called White whales. Some of those buildings held shopping malls which did not survive the business downturn of the Covid 19 era. Others are existing businesses where hybrid employment is allowed, if not encouraged. Places which now have empty office spaces. Some of these may not be convertible due to the need for plumbing in each apartment. Cost could be higher than a purpose-built house. There are smart people out there capable of making decisions in these areas. I can't imagine many of them being republikkkons. Let's let them figure out those things. And then let us bill the Koch enterprises, the Coors Family, the Mellon-Scaife's, the Peter Thiels and Elon Musk's, and the dozens of other groups sponsoring one or more of the foundations that have shaken the foundation of democracy.

It is not hard to see unhoused people. They are everywhere in every city and town. Not everyone who is homeless is directly responsible for their condition. Some have handicaps of various degrees of seriousness, some fell through the cracks, some have emotional instabilities. Some suffer from PTSD. What could possibly be worse than having some mental instability and not have a place to retreat to when life becomes unbearable.  We could be better. We were better at one time. Not a whole lot better, but working on it. The Powell Doctrine, and it's adherents have sought to monetize the benefits of community. They have made the community in their image. No room for those who do not merit being members of their meritocracy. 

The solution, in the estimation of this non-economist, is to tax the rich who have been structuring the tax code to benefit them,,once mere millionaires; since Reagan assumed office. In that 40-odd years span of time the great middle-class that FDR created, that my parents raised a family in, has disappeared. Evidence suggests that our economy has become burdened since then. Burdened from the top. Economic conservatives often cite Frederich Hyacks 1935 book, The Road to Serfdom, and the fear that it engenders to that privileged group that has never known Serfdom. The only Serfdom that has been experienced in this country since WWII, was experienced by the very people that Steven Miller and his fascist group of ICE agents are seeking to deport from our country for the sin of darker skin. They knew Serfdom before, they came to this country to participate in the economy, and they do the work of serfs. What ever economic comfort they were starting to experience before the 1980s, has been ripped from their hands by a group of people who aspire to attain the cruelty of the SS soldiers in German occupied territories. There should be consequences. Taxation, taxation that punishes the use of dollars to enrich a tiny group of fascists seems like a good place to start.