Wages versus Assets

by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

The latest "bipartisan" cockamamie scheme to re-inflate the housing market now apparently involves giving immigration visas to foreigners who buy houses valued at $500,000 a year. There is so much wrong with this idea that it's hard to know where to start: the threat of absentee landlords, the booting out of people faced with foreclosure, the lack of concomitant work visas to accompany the immigration visas, etc. Joan McCarter at DailyKos has a good rundown.

There can be little question at this point that American public policy is dedicated almost entirely to benefiting wealthy people and corporate "people" over regular Americans. But examples like this one show that it's not just corruption: there's a strong bipartisan ideological component that is driving this insanity as well that is based on very flawed economic assumptions.