Cash for fixer uppers
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After all, we do have too many houses –– new ones that did not sell, empty foreclosed houses and second homes that are an embarrassment to a newly socialist country. We need newer houses that emit less carbon dioxide. Do not be worried about the millions of people who are homeless or living in overcrowded homes. When we destroy enough homes we will all be rich. Remember, we did not lose any sleep over the millions of teenagers flipping burgers to raise the cash to buy one of the 250,000 cheap used cars we are already committed to destroy.
How should we destroy the homes? We need a cheaper, faster way than what we did last time. In 2004-06 we pretended to sell homes to people who could not afford them and waited for them to poke holes in the walls and tear out the copper when they got a foreclosure notice. That was too slow. And it still left the building envelope which someone might try to repair and deny jobs to new home construction workers.
A better way to destroy homes is with one big bang. Pooof! Everything is gone instantly. We could get a bigger bang for our buck if Congress mandated that people leave their cars in the garage and put all of their electronics right next to the stick of dynamite.
We have lost six million jobs in this recession. So we probably need to destroy several million each of cars, giant TVs and houses. Note that I am using the Obama formula for job creation. Anyone who works at all on building the replacements is counted as a full time permanent job.
In the unlikely event that too few people can afford discounted new homes, we can get by this inconvenience by using grants and tax credits. We have borrowed so much already what’s another few $Trillion?
If President Obama and the Congress balk at this great idea, we probably will have to solve the unemployment and budget problems the old fashioned way. Ugh! We will have to again insist that everyone pay the full cost of whatever they buy and that tax funds only be used to preserve assets.
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