Monday, May 09, 2016

Obama's War On Home Ownership

by JASmius



I wrote about The One's clandestine (i.e. the Obamedia won't cover it) drive to Sovietize American housing and living patterns and lifestyles eleven months ago.  Or, rather, chronicled the implementation of what Stan Kurtz foresaw coming four years ago:

A year ago, I published Spreading The Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities. There I described [Barack Obama]’s second-term plan to press a transformative “regionalist” agenda on the country. Early but unmistakable signs indicate that Obama’s regionalist push is well underway. Yet [The One] doesn’t discuss his regionalist moves and the press does not report them.

The most obvious new element of [Obama]’s regionalist policy initiative is the July 19th [2013] publication of a [Commissaria]t of Housing & Urban Development regulation broadening the obligation of recipients of federal aid to “affirmatively further fair housing.” The apparent purpose of this rule change is to force suburban neighborhoods with no record of housing discrimination....

Which is simply assumed by dint of the fact that not every neighborhood "looks" they way the Regime wants each neighborhood to look.

....to build more public housing targeted to ethnic and racial minorities. Several administration critics noticed the change and challenged it, while the [Obamedia] has simply declined to cover the story.

Yet even critics have missed the real thrust of HUD’s revolutionary rule change. That’s understandable, since the Obama administration is at pains to downplay the regionalist philosophy behind its new directive. The truth is, HUD’s new rule is about a great deal more than forcing racial and ethnic diversity on the suburbs. (Regionalism, by the way, is actually highly controversial among minority groups. There are many ways in which both middle-class minorities in suburbs, and less well-off minorities in cities, can be hurt by regionalist policies–another reason those plans are seldom discussed.)

The new HUD rule is really about changing the way Americans live. It is part of a broader suite of initiatives designed to block suburban development, press Americans into hyper-dense cities, and force us out of our cars. Government-mandated ethnic and racial diversification plays a role in this scheme, yet the broader goal is forced “economic integration.” The ultimate vision is to make all neighborhoods more or less alike, turning traditional cities into ultra-dense Manhattans, while making suburbs look more like cities do now. In this centrally-planned utopia, steadily increasing numbers will live cheek-by-jowl in “stack and pack” high-rises close to public transportation, while automobiles fall into relative disuse. [emphases added]

And we would all be poorer (the cost of living in cities is much higher than it is in the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas), more dependent, and much easier to control.

Like I said, Sovietization.

Which makes the particulars of this story the antithesis of coincidence:

The portion of the cost of a new single-family house caused by government regulations has jumped almost 30% in the past four years, according to a study for the National Association of Home Builders.

This is more than double the amount disposable incomes have risen in the same period.

Regulations added $65,224 to the price of a new home in 2011, according to the NAHB, but shot up to $84,671 today, an increase of 29.8%. Per capita disposable income rose by only 14.4% in the same period, making it more difficult for home buyers to absorb the increase. [emphases added]

29.8%
The increase in regulatory costs to build an average single-family home in 2016 compared to 2011. 
201120160$10k$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k$42,709$22,535$50,887$33,784
Costs During Development
Costs During Construction
Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI surveys. 

Seen out of context, that would be written off to "typical bureaucracy" and greenstremism and the like.  But seen in-context, that of "changing the way Americans live," it makes perfect sense.  The more unaffordable the Regime can make single-family houses - i.e. the suburbs and exurbs - the more likely they will be compelled to move into "stack & pack" high-rises closer to, or within, the cities themselves, and the more problematic will become owning and using one's automobiles, etc.

It's all part of the plan.

As well as making the next sub-prime loan bubble burst and financial collapse correspondingly larger and more devastating - i.e. the one that will ensconce Barack Obama as president-for-life - than the one that raised him to power in the first place.

Once you connect all the dots, it's horrifying the pictures you discover, isn't it?

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