Tiberius Gracchus wrote:
>
> And implied by my post is that the person with the "traditional" house
> down the street would not be able to sell HIS house. Why? Because I
> could probably buy a factory-line, modular house in Mexico and have it
> shipped here if not for the myriad of laws that prohibit such. So when
> I buy the cheap house, I won't buy yours, so your house goes down in
> value. So the transaction is also at YOUR expense. So therefore YOU
> vote for politicians who prop up your money with laws. All implied by
> my post...
>
This is too simplistic. If the "common man" can buy the house
from Mexico or those who are poor can buy it then many will want
and strive for the more expensive house in order to distinquish
themselves. Similarly, if there was guaranteed income at a
certain level many would work for more to distinquish themselves
from others or would become more creative in part for the very
same reason.
> >
> >I would be willing to bet a VERY large percentage of people sleeping under
> >bridges in the US are their from the choices they made. (99% maybe?,
> >certainly over 95%). They were not put there by "Tha manT".
>
You would lose that bet. They were not put there by the man
necessarily but they sure didn't chose to be there nor are only
their own choices responsible for them ending up there. This
economy does in fact have quite exploitive elements in it. For
instance, the way it attempts to consume the savings and energy
of its middle-class in mindless consumerism to the point where
the debt to earnings ratio of many middle-class people is
grossly out of balance. A relatively small downturn in the
market or a bit of illness or other personal misfortune drives
many from relative comfort to homelessness or very near to it.
I speak from experience of both being homeless in my early
twenties and from being nearly so from a position of being a
very highly regarded software engineer when I went through a
rough perioud in my life 8-9 years back and again 5 years back.
Despite all the brave words, attitude and judgementalness it is
much easier to fall through the cracks in this "land of plenty"
than most people want to acknowledge.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:54 MDT