Detroit: Still dying. Housing Crisis? Alive and well.
Sorry, this is a tad dated...but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.
This is just sad. And bullshit. How the fuck does selling properties to real estate speculators do anything to revitalize neighborhoods that are dying? They're going to take them and make them over and overprice them to try score a killing, like real estate assholes everywhere, and nobody is going to fucking buy them. I'll laugh a little when the speculators lose their shirts, but it will be bitter laughter, because at the end of the day Detroit will still be dead.
And maybe it should die. I'm not suggesting keeping it on life support or anything. But if you have a chance to shoot it some whole blood (read: people who actually want to buy homes there and live in them), why the fuck should you let greedy assholes sabotage that?
This is representative of two facts, one of which is unpalatable to liberals, and one to conservatives:
1.) Government intervention almost always has this kind of problem...as P.J. O'Rourke said, the law of unintended consequences is one bill Congress never fails to pass. Situations like this one where you do something with a noble intent and it just gets screwed up and manipulated are an unfortunate side effect of a system which is easy to manipulate.
2.) The free market is not all about small businesses and little guys striving for the American Dream. Quite often, the ugly face of the free market is a greedy developer screwing over little guys to try and make a bargeload of cash. This is repeated over and over, and I really don't think it's any secret, to anyone. So when conservatives try to close their eyes to this crap, it just makes me depressed. And disgusted.
This is not to say I'm all down on capitalism. I like capitalism. I like owning shit, and I like the fact that people are willing to make goods I want so I can buy them with the sweat of my labors (or better still, the sweat of my wits). But capitalism's only saving grace is that it is better than communism...and when you look at what THAT produced, that's really not saying much.
The problem is not too much government regulation (well, it kind of is)...the main problem is too much regulation that simply doesn't do anything, and not enough regulation to solve the gaping holes in the system. Ones like, I don't know, allowing real estate speculators to entirely ruin the whole point of a massive housing auction.
This is just sad. And bullshit. How the fuck does selling properties to real estate speculators do anything to revitalize neighborhoods that are dying? They're going to take them and make them over and overprice them to try score a killing, like real estate assholes everywhere, and nobody is going to fucking buy them. I'll laugh a little when the speculators lose their shirts, but it will be bitter laughter, because at the end of the day Detroit will still be dead.
And maybe it should die. I'm not suggesting keeping it on life support or anything. But if you have a chance to shoot it some whole blood (read: people who actually want to buy homes there and live in them), why the fuck should you let greedy assholes sabotage that?
This is representative of two facts, one of which is unpalatable to liberals, and one to conservatives:
1.) Government intervention almost always has this kind of problem...as P.J. O'Rourke said, the law of unintended consequences is one bill Congress never fails to pass. Situations like this one where you do something with a noble intent and it just gets screwed up and manipulated are an unfortunate side effect of a system which is easy to manipulate.
2.) The free market is not all about small businesses and little guys striving for the American Dream. Quite often, the ugly face of the free market is a greedy developer screwing over little guys to try and make a bargeload of cash. This is repeated over and over, and I really don't think it's any secret, to anyone. So when conservatives try to close their eyes to this crap, it just makes me depressed. And disgusted.
This is not to say I'm all down on capitalism. I like capitalism. I like owning shit, and I like the fact that people are willing to make goods I want so I can buy them with the sweat of my labors (or better still, the sweat of my wits). But capitalism's only saving grace is that it is better than communism...and when you look at what THAT produced, that's really not saying much.
The problem is not too much government regulation (well, it kind of is)...the main problem is too much regulation that simply doesn't do anything, and not enough regulation to solve the gaping holes in the system. Ones like, I don't know, allowing real estate speculators to entirely ruin the whole point of a massive housing auction.