patrick.net

yeah, I'd like to think I coud have written that.

we worship Efficiency and Wal-mart's low overheads, but if that just results in low wages and billions going to China and WMT owners each year, it's all a net loss.

We think we gain saving money in a more "efficient" economy low-margin high-quantity economy, but what actually happens to those gains?

If we use these savings to bid up housing rents and land values, it's all for NOTHING.

Modern economics fails to undertand at all that the land market is not like other market sectors. As Churchill said back in his "progressive" days, it is THE MOTHER OF ALL MONOPOLIES.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CUUR0000SEHA

shows rents have doubled since the late 80s. It's largely the same stock, so that's just this parasitic sector ratcheting up its economic rent extraction on working America.

It is tough to offshore a place to sleep so the banksters get us where we live. Put a tax on it with their favorite legal tender and there you have it. The makings of a 'system'.

taxee says

so the banksters get us where we live

the take on housing from banks is much less than the take from the landlords -- this is obvious as mortgages are fixed and have historically inflate away while tenants' rents are floating and rise with wages.

hell, the banks are the ones offering the escape from the landlords' rent-seeking, at a small vig of course!

New rules: The financial sector is laundering funny money at a torrid pace confiscating property. Keeps the commoners working? No need for that with plantations overseas. What's a bankster to do!?