Barry the Pigherd

I suppose that title is both shocking and irritating to some people. That was my intent. Yesterday's election was supposed to have ushered in an era of change. I doubt very much whether the change will be anything that will better the nation in any significant way.

Campaign promises are slanted toward self-interest. While the Obama campaign attacked the "selfishness" of those who did not want to pay more taxes, it played to the selfishness of those who deem it just to plunder and pillage anyone who has more than the average share of goodies. It will be interesting indeed to see how much satisfaction will be obtained by those who expect bigger handouts from the Federal pigtrough.

Welfare recipients (including all those who look forward to refunds of taxes they did not pay) aside, players such as the National Association of Homebuilders and the National Association of Realtors, both of which have substantial influence due to the amount of lobby money they can throw at Washington, are looking for a housing bail-out. They will probably get it. It matters not that the current economic crisis is founded in an oversupply of housing. Economics is a subject that no politician wants to master, because it does not supply soothing answers to thorny questions.

Housing has always been a part of American manufacturing. When offshore production of most other goods became more cost effective due to the levying of production taxes on American products, the percentage of manufacturing made up by housing increased because it is not practical to build houses overseas and ship them here. (The transportation problem is really the only thing that stands in the way of outsourcing housing to China. Once some enterprising American figures out how to build a Star Trek type matter transporter, and some Democrat President allows the advanced technology to be sold to the Chinese, you can kiss the US housing industry good-bye, too. Buy a house on-line, have it delivered to your lot, anywhere in the world. Think what that technology would do to pizza delivery. "No cold pizzas; we deliver fresh to your dining room table.")

It was a standing (and union-irritating) joke that anyone who could buy a hammer could be a carpenter. Out of work? Start your own construction business. Farm shut down for the winter? Get a construction job until spring. America built more houses than it had households, and the greedy foreign bankers loaned money at teaser rates with adjustable terms, fully expecting that they would recoup their initial low interest when the rates reset.

The foreign bankers gambled and lost. Congress and the Federal Reserve sold the American people into slavery to bail the foreign bankers out. It was not a problem of New Math. It was a problem of No Math. I doubt that many of the culpable ones ever sat down to figure out how 100,000,000 taxpayers would pay for a $700,000,000,000 bailout. (I once had an argument with a Jr. High math teacher who insisted that a zero was a nothing. Makes me wonder if he was a Congressional math tutor.) Now the Home Builders are asking for a $268,000,000,000 bailout, plus interest rate subsidies (paid by who?), to the tune of another $143,000,000,000. I am betting that they will get what they ask for. Here is a hot investment tip -- buy Milton Bradley money, because it will soon be worth more than Federal Reserve notes.

So here is the joke. To solve the economic crisis, we should build more houses.

Barry will only be able to blame GW Bush for a limited time. Then he will have to produce results. He will find that it is easier to promise change based on fairy tales, than to actually make coaches from pumpkins or waken sleeping princesses by kissing them (Bill found that out, too, but the people of Serbia stood for the tab). Reality is much harder to deal with. When piggies start to squeal over their disappointment, the ruckus can drive a pigherd to desperate measures. One solution is to chase the piggies from the trough and make bacon. Ask yourself, "What Would Obama Do?" Piggies of America, you have been warned.