1/10 Americans On Food Stamps, 1/10 Borrowers In Default Or Foreclosure, 1/9 Homes Are Empty §
So 1 in 10 Americans is on food stamps.
And 1 in 10 or so homeowners are behind on payments or in foreclosure or already foreclosed upon.
And 1 in 9 homes in the U.S. are currently unoccupied.
Wait, didn't the Fed and the Treasury just give away lots of money in 2008? All the various avenues together add up. But let's be conservative and add it all up to about $1 trillion given banks.
That's enough to buy 4 million homes at $250,000 each (way above the average home price).
That's more houses than there are homeless people in the U.S. A house for every man, woman, and child who is homeless.
Not that I'm necessarily advocating giving homes away to homeless people when there are many, many millions who faithfully pay rent or mortgages and would feel screwed over to see their tax money and future debt obligations going to people who didn't EARN the housing.
But it does beg some questions. With this much money floating around, which group of people receiving hundreds of billions of dollars are the deserving ones?
And it does make you wonder. There's something wrong here with how many homes have been built, and how much money has been thrown at banks, and how our society isn't really better off for it.