One of the fun devices in Part III of Atlas Shrugged is something author Ayn Rand called “the policy of the microsecond.” Despite the high-flown philosophical claims of the looters, their actual motivation was never anything other than “the expediency of the moment” — one absurd rationalization after the next, justifying theft and visiting the consequences of that theft upon its victims.
Just about a month ago, as a comical palliative for the housing mess, I wrote this as a joke:
[I]t would make great sense to make immigration to America easier and faster. Imagine having neighbors who work hard, pay their bills on time and can spell correctly!
That’s the logic of the policy of the microsecond. We don’t want to stop stealing wealth from innocent people. We don’t want to amend our ways and do better going forward. We don’t want to undo the awful damage occasioned by centuries of accelerating criminal government. No. All we want to do is find a way to get through this crisis. We’ll worry about the crisis caused by this “solution” — the crisis of the microsecond after this one — later on.
So guess what happens? I might have been joking, but we live in a world beyond satire. From the Wall Street Journal:
The Obama administration should seriously consider granting resident status to foreigners who buy surplus houses in this country. This makes more sense than the president’s $275 billion housing bailout plan, which Americans greeted with a Bronx cheer.
The federal bailout forces taxpayers to subsidize overextended homeowners who bet on ever-rising house prices and used their abodes as ATMs, and it doesn’t get to the basic problem — the huge inventory of excess houses. We estimate that 2.4 million houses over and above normal working inventories are left over from the 1996-2005 housing bubble. That’s a lot, considering the long-term average annual construction of 1.5 million single- and multi-family units.
Excess inventory is the mortal enemy of house prices, which have already fallen 27% since the peak in early 2006. We predict another 14% drop through the end of 2010 if nothing is done to eliminate the surplus.
Doing nothing to eliminate the excess inventory might well push the recession through 2010 and into a depression. Declining home values, for example, are eliminating the home equity that has funded oversized consumer spending for years.
As consumers retrench, production is cut, payrolls are slashed, and consumer confidence, incomes and spending are savaged in a self-feeding downward economic spiral. But if the government buys surplus houses and sells them at low market-clearing prices, other house prices will drop, destroying more home equity and driving many more mortgages under water. Bulldozing excess houses would be an inefficient end for perfectly habitable structures.
A better idea is to offer permanent residence status to the many foreigners who are clamoring to get into the U.S. — if they buy houses of minimal values (not shacks). They wouldn’t need to live in those houses, but in order to remove the unit from the total housing market, they couldn’t rent them. Their temporary resident status granted upon purchase would become permanent after, perhaps, five years, if they still owned the houses and maintained clean records. The mere announcement of this program might well stop the ongoing collapse in house prices, especially in cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco, where prices are down 40% — but where many foreigners like to live.
Read that again — “where many foreigners like to live.” That sounds pretty sick and cynical, doesn’t it? But did you catch this? “Declining home values, for example, are eliminating the home equity that has funded oversized consumer spending for years.” The game is to exploit the new chumps in order to continue exploiting the old chumps!
The American economy is addicted to stolen money. We are so far removed from honesty and integrity that, in preference to admitting our awful errors, we would rather conjure up cynical schemes for bilking foreigners, innocent rubes who want nothing more than a better way of life — and who foolishly believe that America still is what it once was.
We didn’t have the guts, when America was born, to denounce the slave traders. And now they’ve taken over…
Grog says:
I think the presidents bail out plan is douchebaggery at it’s worst. Almost as bad as the douche bags that wrote these bad mortgages whilst lining their pockets.
March 17, 2009 — 8:14 am
Al Lorenz says:
Wow, a great marketer and possessing good sense in an upside down world. I’m thinking you’d make a great candidate as well as a great president. Gregg Swann in 2012! I guess Kim and I can agree on one thing, I’d hire you to sell my house too!
March 17, 2009 — 11:22 am
James Boyer says:
I don’t seriously think that any such law has a snowballs chance. All those protectionists would raise holy hell is such were proposed by Obama or any legislative member.
March 17, 2009 — 1:36 pm
Don Reedy says:
Addictions, lack of integrity, and no guts. We’ve both lived long enough to completely understand these diseases of our Republic.
In the 1960’s I railed against the addiction of cheap labor proffered as integration, only to watch as I moved west to California and experienced the addiction of illegal immigration.
In the 1970’s I found myself a Marine at the time of Vietnam, and practically puked my way through the loss of integrity of those who sent men and women off, only to spit on them at their return.
In the time between my first working days and now, in steel towns, farm towns, and fast driving cities, the guts my parents had, and theirs, and theirs, opened my eyes to the simplicity and honor of living with responsibility as the keynote to a life. Now, the keynotes are cryptic reassemblies of old wornout socialist and political deadbeats, wearing me out, driving me mad, and killing me softly but surely with their disease.
The Randy Newman song made me a little sad tonight, so I’ve given myself over to just saying what’s simmering inside. They do seem to have taken over a part of me, so tonight I’ll just sail away from their carnage and rest on the music, the wonder of what could have been, and on your insight and strength of conviction.
March 17, 2009 — 7:57 pm
Bill Rutledge says:
America was built on immigration, and we should open our doors to as many eager, qualified immigrants as we possibly can. We don’t have to make them buy houses–they’re going to do that anyway.
March 18, 2009 — 1:52 pm
Greg Swann says:
> we should open our doors to as many eager, qualified immigrants as we possibly can
Free countries have open borders — laissez faire, laissez aller — free to trade, free to travel. Police states close their borders to emigration. Welfare states close their borders to immigration. By that simple standard of measurement, you can classify any government on the planet. “America was built on immigration” — when it was a free country. Those days are long since past.
March 18, 2009 — 2:07 pm
Hal Robinson says:
If only letting in more foreigners did help our economy, everyone would be happier.
March 26, 2009 — 9:37 am