I was planning on writing this same idea when I happened across this meme on Facebook.  The meme is credited to the Democratic Socialists of America.  (I STILL hold that ‘Democratic Socialist’ is a stupid name for an economic system.  I’m STILL pushing for ‘Social Capitalism’ instead…)

Nomenclature aside, the meme perfectly captures what bothers me most about so-called “Free Market Capitalism”.  In one picture and a few words the meme proves there’s no such thing as a “free market” and I say it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.

The thing most free marketeers don’t understand is that the system known as the poorly named ‘Democratic Socialism’ was pioneered in the United States by one Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  He didn’t call it that, of course.  He called it the ‘New Deal’.  It was the New Deal that made America great, not the free market.

Regulations helped control behaviors that had previously destabilized the economy, ultimately culminating in the Great Depression, on a regular basis.  High taxes on the wealthy caused wealthy people to reinvest rather than just throw more money on their already colossal individual piles.  (Piles they don’t “earn”, no matter what they tell you…)

You see, Capitalism, left to its own devices, consumes itself.  I’ll give you just one example.  Have you ever heard of a R.E.I.T.?  (It’s pronounced “reet”.)  That’s a Real Estate Investment Trust.  They pool money they get from people with resources and use it, as the name suggests, to buy up real estate.  It’s not a bad idea if you’re buying strip malls and office buildings or even apartment complexes.  But now they’ve set their sights on single-family homes.  By “now”, I mean over the last few years.

Social scientists have long known that having people own their own homes makes a community more stable.  Once folks put down roots they are invested in the area.  They want nice roads and good schools.  They work and shop in the local area.  People want to live in a nice place so they’re willing to help make it and keep it a nice place.  In short, people owning their own homes is good for the society as a whole.

These days, owning your own home has moved well beyond the reach of most people.  According to the local paper where I live, the median home price, as of April 13, 2017, is $639,000!  The story says the reason is “tight inventory”.  We’re told there’s not enough new building going on so people are competing for the small number of houses.  This, in turn, means people are making offers, sometimes all cash offers, over the asking price…no matter how high the asking price!

How do people do that?  How does a work-a-day Joe make an offer OVER $639,000 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath tract house?  I don’t think he does.  I think R.E.I.T.S do.  They have massive amounts of money.  They don’t care how much they pay for a property as they intend to rent it out.  (Which, in turn, causes the rental market to explode in cost.)

It’s a practice that artificially inflates the value of a house.  People who DO manage to buy, want to keep that value, naturally.  Should the market “correct” itself, they find themselves “under water” in their deal.  The banks are motivated to maintain the artificial values because they know that if people find themselves too far under water, they walk away in what’s known as “strategic default”.

Real estate people I know all pretend they don’t know what I’m talking about…never even heard of a R.E.I.T.  It’s hard to blame them.  Think of the return on the sale of a $639,000 house!  Capitalism at its finest.  And the sad part is, it IS Capitalism at its finest which, unfortunately, equals society at its worst.

Sure, it’s contributing to homelessness, pushing people out of the markets and out of the area they may have grown up in.  It’s destabilizing entire communities.  But it’s generating profit and Capitalism has no other goal.  As a microcosm, R.E.I.T.S are a fundamental example of Capitalism consuming itself.

But ask yourself: how long can this continue?  We’re well past the point where people can choose where to live around here.  IF you can find a place you can afford, you can stay.  If not, you leave – or move into the streets.  Homelessness is rampant.  (As a sidebar: one of the things John Adams noted on his first visit to France – only a few years before the French revolution – was the number of “beggars” in the streets…)

Free market Capitalism dictates people should do nothing; let the market straighten itself out.  But the wreckage to individuals and to the society as a whole in the meantime is far to dear a price to pay just so rich people can get richer.

I have a better idea: prevent R.E.I.T.S from buying single family homes.  Worse for them but better for the communities they’re currently ravaging, require them to divest all single family holdings in an excruciatingly short period of time, say six months.

I’ll tell you this: I can write radical things like that because I know it’s never going to happen.  The flood of inventory hitting the market at once would crash the artificially inflated value of homes almost overnight.  The truth is, it would only represent a correction and as a bonus would induce a concurrent correction to rental prices.  But none of the people who have been profiting from the status quo would be at all happy the gravy train was ending…

I’ve noticed that things have quieted down significantly on my Facebook page.  What once was a steady stream of conservative…um…input, has dropped off to a trickle and been replaced by cute kitty videos and such.

I’ve spent a little time (very little) trying to figure out what happened.  Where did they go?  I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities:

1. Not even conservatives want to defend Donald Trump so they’re keeping a low profile…
2. Conservatives know that they’ve finally succeeded in destroying this once-great nation so there’s nothing left worth arguing about…
3. The implementation of Facebook’s new “Fake News” identifier has taken the wind from conservative sails…

The list is not intended to be exhaustive…

No surprise, it looks as though the Republicans will forward the nomination of Neil Gorsuch from the Judicial Committee to the full Senate today, Monday, April 3.  Democrats have promised to oppose his nomination.  I hope they do.  Gorsuch seems to be one of those judges who calls himself an “originalist” in order to support archaic and stupid ideas.  I accept the position that the nomination was “stolen” and that, alone, means he shouldn’t be allowed to advance.  Worse, since the so-called “President” has question marks all over his “election” regarding interference from Russia, none of his nominations should move forward until we know one way or another if Trump made the choice of if Putin did.

Those are the most prominent positions being put forward these days by Democrats against Gorsuch.  I think they’re each valid, each correct.  But, if I could just get real a second, the truth is I don’t want ANY nominee put forward by the GOP.  Putting Gorsuch on the bench gives the GOP all the power it needs to do whatever the hell they want to do and I want the Democrats to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening – because, inevitably, whatever the GOP does proves harmful to the largest number of Americans.

They’ve already got Clarence Thomas, a man who committed perjury to get onto the highest bench in the land.  NOW they want to install another toady to move the activist conservative agenda forward…well, backwards, really.  Every time the GOP does something like this, they undermine the credibility of the “Supreme Court” – to the point where someone like me can’t write “Supreme Court” without quotes.  The GOP doesn’t care.  They know Thomas lied and they know the current vacancy was stolen but they also know that once he’s on the bench, it’s done and done.

People keep going back and forth: is 45 insane or just really shrewd?  To my mind, he’s insane…delusional, even.  If he tweeted he had just seen a six-foot pink bunny nobody else can see everybody but his base would understand he had probably lost his mind completely.  So when he tweets that Obama went all “Mission Impossible” on him, I’m thinking pink bunny – and I don’t want an insane man forming the SCOTUS.  More importantly, I don’t want a SCOTUS that will rubber-stamp every pink bunny sighting 45 might tweet about.

The GOP doesn’t care if 45 is delusional or not.  They only care that he’ll enact cruel GOP positions.  The GOP controlled Congress will back his play every day – unless his positions seem to put individual members at risk.  If they gain control over the Court – well, I don’t know but it won’t be good.  Think ‘Hobby Lobby’ and ‘Citizen’s United’.  Bad news…

I’ll tell you this: I’m counting on the Democrats to hold this thing up as long as possible.  At the same time, I’m not sanguine about leaving the position open forever.  So how about just until after the mid-term?  If Democrats can regain control of the Senate (a HUGE “if” based on what I see of their behaviors these days) the Gorsuch nomination is torpedoed and a more centrist person – say, Merrick Garland – could be nominated, instead.  If the Dems can’t manage to wrest away three seats, well, then I guess Americans will be stuck with pink bunnies…

When the Putin Puppet ran for office, he promised he would bring back coal jobs.  Is he going to do it?  The coal industry doesn’t seem to think so.

In this article from The Guardian, a coal executive named Robert Murray talks about how excited he is that the coal industry is going to be freed from all of those onerous regulations that keep them from destroying the environment for profit but he also makes clear that the jobs aren’t coming back and suggests 45 should “temper” expectations about coal mining jobs.

The jobs didn’t leave because of regulations.  The jobs left because of technology changes in the industry and competition from other sources of energy, most notably natural gas.  Actually, it’s Capitalism at it’s…um…best?  A better product is being offered for a better price.  If coal can’t match the benefits of other options, coal’s day has passed.

There’s a quote in this article that caught my eye: Mr Murray opines that, “We have to get the government out of the manipulation of energy markets.”  I know he believes it.  To a guy like him, the only people who should be “manipulating energy markets” are the masters of the fossil fuels.

I’ll tell you this: coal is yesterday’s news, like all of the fossil fuels.  I know they’re not going down without a fight but they’re going down and it’s not because of regulations.  It’s because there’s a better way, now…