Above is illustrated capitalism in a nutshell. For every market for every product or service you can think of, the graph above describes how the price is set. The sweet X spot where demand meets supply is the market equilibrium. The “P” spot on the vertical Price axis tells you the price.
U.S. housing sales are stalled, which is another way of saying out of equilibrium. I’m sure every seller is convinced they’ve already lowered their price as much as possible. But obviously, they’re wrong. The graph demonstrates that if you lower the “P” line enough, the “D” line of Demand will rise up to meet it.
There are between 2 and 3 million homeless people in the U.S. And between 11% and 13% of our housing is standing empty.
The “Q” or quantity line, represents the number of houses that could be sold if the owners would be willing to drop them into homeless people’s price ranges. Ten dollars? Fifteen, or twenty? Sounds crazy, but the market would be stalled no longer. Sounds crazy, but if even if this were attempted by a tiny fraction of the number of banks holding worthless mortgage paper, upon most of which they’re going to take a total loss anyway, and if only a tiny percentage of those houses ended up safely sheltering people in need…
…then a few less people would be homeless, and a shitload of houses would get sold.
Wow. That’s pretty frickn’ insightful (and damn well written) for a guy who’s at least as drunk as I am.
I hope they move in next door to me! Nothing will increase my property value and my largest investment better than a vagrant moving in next door. I wonder what the financial planner that wrote this has for a retirement portfolio? Did anyone stop to consider WHY the homeless are homeless? Will giving away 10 dollar houses fix a lifetime of an incentive-less existence ? What next? “free” healthcare for everyone! Good grief.
Dear John:
I’d like to politely disagree with a few of your…well almost everything you said. First, I don’t think the author was actually advocating that we should take every vacant house in the United States and sell ‘em to the first yahoo that walks up with 10 bucks in their hand. I think the point was we have a huge glut of unsold properties, (thank you “Financial planners” for your greedy speculation, I await with great anticipation the next welfare bill for bailing you vagrants out.) and the banks holding those properties may very well soon see the day when they’d be grateful to get ten bucks. Demolition of a derelict house ain’t cheap.
Considering your property value sir, I don’t think a neighborhood full of vacant houses is gonna do wonders for your property values anyway.
As to why the homeless are homeless, (by the way, Happy Easter, the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus-he had a slightly different take on “the homeless” than yourself-and without going into specifics, his was superior to yours.) there are myriad reasons why a person could find themselves homeless; a series of misfortunes, the attendant depression thereof, heck I’ll bet 10 Bucks, or even my own home that there are a few “financial planners” who, up until a few years ago had fine housing, yet now find themselves homeless, in spite of a lifetime of incentive-full existence.
Begging your pardon sir, but you seem to be one of those who are successful (read:lucky-there but for the Grace of God, ya know) and believes you did it all on your own, that you are where you are today because of your own hard work.
You are mistaken.
I doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, you did it with the help of millions of other people, currently living, or since deceased. From the people who now grow your food, provide your energy, your security…to the old-timers that built the roads you drive to work on and others use to deliver your food. The soldiers who fought over the generations for you so that you are not in a Nazi concentration camp or slaving for the Emperor in an Imperial coal mine. Do you understand?
Many of the problems we face today are not caused by the have-nots; Many of our problems are the result of those who have achieved a modicum of success, but are completely ignorant to the root causes that made that success possible.
Finally, your closing comment, “free healthcare for everyone”. I know of no sensible person who is advocating “free” healthcare for anybody-just a better way of paying for it. I’ll cite two counterpoints not usually talked about; First, American businesses are at a competitive disadvantage against companies in Japan, Germany, Canada etc., due to U.S. companies’ spending on health insurance. Second, you are familiar with the term “pandemic” I trust? If you have the best health insurance plan ever, and the finest doctor, it won’t mean squat if you fall victim to a new, nasty flu virus.
And in which population do you think a pandemic is more likely to take hold? One that is generally more healthy, of one that is less healthy? Setting aside the immorality of not treating say, a homeless child who is ill, it would seem that a comprehensive health care system is actually in EVERYONE’S best interest.
I hope you will not take my comments to be malicious, that was certainly not my intent, I merely hope they will inspire you to perhaps examine the validity of your system of beliefs.
Thank you.
That was a lot of typing Mark. I’m sure your Doodle is tired after that.
ha! Wait, did you type that with your doodle?
“Hatch was one of a handful of Republicans involved in negotiations with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) before dropping out two weeks ago…… . ?The Democrats want a public option and they?re going to have a public option in the final bill,? Hatch said in reference to a proposal to create a broad government-run insurance program. He predicted that even if Baucus manages to pass a healthcare reform package with a membership-run co-op insurance plan instead of a government-run program, he would lose out to liberals in negotiations between the Senate and House.. . ?He?ll be crushed in the middle,? Hatch said of prospective Senate-House negotiations, adding that Democrats are intent on creating a system of ?socialized medicine? in the United States. . . Hatch pointed to what he considered major problems with Democratic healthcare reform proposals:. . . ? They make no effort to curtail medical malpractice lawsuits, which Republicans claim cost $100 billion a year.. . . . ? Pending legislation could result in drastic cuts in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. Hatch said that doctors could see their reimbursements go down 25 percent and hospitals could see a 35 percent drop.. . ?The real problem is their ideas are out of this world,? he said of the Democrats? healthcare proposals. ?They?re saying they?re going to get $400-plus billion out of Medicare and Medicare is in debt right now.. . ?They?re going to pay doctors 25 percent less and going to pay hospitals 35 percent less and they think that system is going to work.?. . A reform plan put together by House Democrats calls for $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade to help pay for the cost of covering about 45 million Americans currently without healthcare insurance.. . But this does not sit well with Republicans and conservative Democrats given Medicare?s projected insolvency within the next decade.. . In May the Obama administration announced that Medicare is running out of funding faster than projected. Obama administration officials predict that Medicare?s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will become exhausted by 2017.. . Defenders of the House healthcare bill say the legislation would reinvest nearly $300 billion back into Medicare to increase payments to doctors. But that would still result in a net reduction of about $200 billion, which would be used to pay for expanded insurance coverage.. . Hatch?s strong opposition is a troubling sign for Democrats because he has been party to some of the biggest healthcare bills to pass Congress in recent year.. . He joined with Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1997 to create the State Children?s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover the kids of working-class parents who did not qualify for Medicaid.. . Hatch also teamed up with Democrats to pass legislation expanding stem cell research in 2007, one of the first priorities of Democrats after they regained control of Congress.. . Before the Democratic take-over, Hatch sided with Democrats in pressing former President George W. Bush to accept legislation that would have expanded SCHIP by $35 million over five years. Bush vetoed the legislation.. . Hatch voted against an expansion of SCHIP when it came up for another vote earlier this year because Democrats rewrote the bill and excluded him from having input. Hatch said the version that passed in January made ?a mockery of the original intent by expanding CHIP to cover people for whom the program was never intended.? The bill expanded health coverage in some parts of the country to the children of families earning up to $88,000.. What do you think?. Stonecold, the problem with the insurance industry is that the govt gave them preferences creating monopolies. I agree we need reform and I will look at that one. I like Ron Paul’s too. I just can’t stand what the Dems are pushing.. But I don’t think the govt has the right to mess with ins for those of us who don’t want their plan, now or after we lose our current plans Why don’t they just address preexisting conditions?.
Well, you’ve veered completely off-topic, and I’m 90% assuming you’re spamming me with a cut-and-paste job from someone’s post from 2009. But still, I’ll bite.
The health care reform law falls short, way short. As long as insurance companies are kept intact, as they are in this new law, then we haven’t gone far enough in removing the profit-centric business model that infects U.S. healthcare. Single-payer would have been the only effective way to address that.
But having bargained away that solution, as the prez and the congressional dems did, then the current structure became the only viable option. The individual mandate became a necessity.
Opponents of that provision say it’s unconstitutional for the gov’t to mandate that private citizens buy a specified product from private companies. The Obama admin maintains that it is indeed permitted, under the Constitution’s commerce clause. For precedence they point to the requirement that most states have that drivers carry liability insurance. I’ll add another: most municipalities require homeowners to purchase services from local monopolies. (Don’t think that’s true? Then try taking your house off the electrical, water and sewage grids, and see how long before your property is condemned.)
That said, it’s clear that the individual mandate will be judged by the Supreme Court, and I’ll bet all our left nuts that they’ll strike it down. So then you’ll get your wish – the health care reform law will consist solely of the pre-existing conditions rule.
So the law is weak, ill-conceived and destined to be neutered. That will probably mean the end of health-care reform for a generation. As disappointing as all that is, I’m willing to give Obama and the congressional dems a bit more credit than you are, dear reader, for passing that law, and that is because…at least they tried. At least they tried to address the issue. Half your post complains about the heavy-handed politics they used to pass the bill (boo hoo for Orrin Hatch). That doesn’t bother me at all. We both know that the repubs, when in the majority, are at least that heavy-handed in the pursuit of passing pet bills. The difference here is that instead of aiming to help a narrow special-interest majority, the dems’ bill was intended to help the entire country.