Nick Gillespie Talks Politics of Homeowning on Freedom Watch w Judge Napolitano

Last Friday, I appeared on Fox Business' Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano to talk about the politics of home ownership and how it's distorted the economy to bad ends.

The short version: There's no way that the government can guarantee or heavily subsidize a class of assets without it all ending in tears.

Check out this blog post: "If Housing Was Overpriced, Is it a Bad Thing that Fewer Americans Own Homes?"

About 4.30 minutes.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Better your house hit its lowest value before you buy it rather than after.

[R C Dean]

The administration will not rest until all houses are priced above average!

[rather]

Eat some salted foods the night before your appearances; it not only swells the tits but fixes that old man face thing

[Robert (in the Bronx)]

I haven't listened to the video, but home ownership has been a strategic point for libertarians and especially "conservatives" in recent decades. The hope has been that home ownership will xlate into an ethos that favors "conservatism" by the owners, accelerating by positive feedback a trend toward the "right" socially and politically. Therefore favoritism toward home ownership by occupants was pursued first by the Thatcher gov't in the UK and later via the "ownership society" by Republicans on the national scene in the USA. In the UK this was pursued by a program of below-market sales of council housing, so that one was also a privatiz'n measure; in the US, however, it was an increase in favorable treatment of owner occupancy vs. landlordship.

[Sy]

"The hope has been that home ownership will xlate into an ethos that favors "conservatism" by the owners, accelerating by positive feedback a trend toward the "right" socially and politically."

COOLNEWSLETTERBRO

[Robert (in the Bronx)]

Now that I've watched it...heh, leave it to Fox News to time the discussion to coincide with the crawl of real estate financial data.

Disappointing, but what can you expect in such a short segment? Typical current Reasonoid attempt to put pox on all (heh) houses, instead of getting into finer discrimination of different types of, and reasons for, pro owner occupancy policies over different times, places, and political orientations.

[R C Dean]

Libertarians are generally unconcerned with fine details of forced wealth transfer and rent-seeking, Bob. Get use to it.

[Robert (in the Bronx)]

I am used to it, but it's something Virginia Postrel warned against. Just because the ideal isn't out there as a viable current choice doesn't mean you should throw up your hands and not wade into the swamp to try to discern where there might be fish.

[Revel Mason]

Dude is making a whole lot of sense when you think about it.

http://www.anon-puter.tk